“Mitty!  You know perfectly well that I have never been inside the door since Mrs. Shafto was so rude to me about the book club, when I wrote and protested against the ‘loose’ novels she put upon her list.  Why, you saw her letter yourself!”

Here a pause ensued, during which Miss Jane blew into every separate finger of her gloves and folded them up with the neatest exactitude.  Presently she murmured with a meditative air: 

“I was thinking of asking Eliza to run over.”

“Oh, you may ask!” rejoined her sister, with a sniff of scorn, “but Eliza won’t stir.  There’s a beefsteak pudding for dinner.  And that reminds me that this is the egg woman’s day, and I must see if she has called.  I shall want three dozen.”

And without another word the elder Miss Tebbs bustled out of the room and abandoned her relative to solitude and speculation.

Matilda and Jane Tebbs were the elderly orphans of a late vicar, and still considered the parish and community of Tadpool their special charge.  Miss Jane was organist and Sunday school superintendent; Miss Tebbs held mothers’ meetings and controlled the maternity basket and funds.  Subsequent to their retirement from the vicarage the sisters had known straitened circumstances; in fact, had experienced the sharp nip of real poverty; but, no matter how painful their necessities, they contrived to keep up appearances and never withdrew from society, nor suffered their little circle to forget that their grandfather had been an archdeacon.  In spite of anxious times and scanty funds, they clung with loyal tenacity to certain family relics, in the shape of old silver, china and prints, many of which were highly marketable.

In those evil days it was whispered that “the Tebbs had only one best dress between them”—­a certain rich black silk.  As Miss Jane was at least six inches taller than dumpy Miss Mitty, difficulties of length were cunningly surmounted by an adjustable flounce.  Needless to add that on festive occasions, such as high teas, little dinners, and card parties, the sisters never appeared together, the one “out of turn” invariably excusing herself with toothache or a heavy cold.  Although they argued and bickered in private, and had opposing tastes in the matter of boiling eggs and drawing tea, the Tebbs were a deeply attached pair and presented an unbroken front to the outer world.

After several years of brave struggle, during which the wolf of want prowled hungrily round Highfield Cottage, a substantial and unexpected fortune, fell to the Tebbs, restored them to comfortable independence—­and to the notice of such far-sighted parents as happened to be in quest of useful and benevolent godmothers.  The sisters made but little change in their style of living; they now owned handsome furs, a separate wardrobe, and not a few rich silks; they still continued to occupy the cottage, and retained in their service a certain tyrannical treasure, widely known and feared