Cecilia had on a Persian-green silk blouse with sleeves that would have hidden her slim hands, but for silver buttons made in the likeness of little roses at her wrists; on her brow was a faint frown, as though she were wondering what her thoughts were all about.  She sat there every morning catching those thoughts, and placing them in one or other of her little books.  Only by thus working hard could she keep herself, her husband, and daughter, in due touch with all the different movements going on.  And that the touch might be as due as possible, she had a little headache nearly every day.  For the dread of letting slip one movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her; there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of hers and Stephen’s which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much.  Then, too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed her constitution.  She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid isolation now enjoyed by Blanca, of which some subtle instinct, rather than definite knowledge, had informed her; but not often, for she was a loyal little person, to whom Stephen and his comforts were of the first moment.  And though she worried somewhat because her thoughts would come by every post, she did not worry very much—­hardly more than the Persian kitten on her lap, who also sat for hours trying to catch her tail, with a line between her eyes, and two small hollows in her cheeks.

When she had at last decided what concerts she would be obliged to miss, paid her subscription to the League for the Suppression of Tinned Milk, and accepted an invitation to watch a man fall from a balloon, she paused.  Then, dipping her pen in ink, she wrote as follows: 

“Mrs. Stephen Dallison would be glad to have the blue dress ordered by her yesterday sent home at once without alteration.—­Messrs. Rose and Thorn, High Street, Kensington.”

Ringing the bell, she thought:  ’It will be a job for Mrs. Hughs, poor thing.  I believe she’ll do it quite as well as Rose and Thorn.’—­“Would you please ask Mrs. Hughs to come to me?—­Oh, is that you, Mrs. Hughs?  Come in.”

The seamstress, who had advanced into the middle of the room, stood with her worn hands against her sides, and no sign of life but the liquid patience in her large brown eyes.  She was an enigmatic figure.  Her presence always roused a sort of irritation in Cecilia, as if she had been suddenly confronted with what might possibly have been herself if certain little accidents had omitted to occur.  She was so conscious that she ought to sympathise, so anxious to show that there was no barrier between them, so eager to be all she ought to be, that her voice almost purred.

“Are you Getting on with the curtains, Mrs. Hughs?”

“Yes, m’m, thank you, m’m.”

“I shall have another job for you to-morrow—­altering a dress.  Can you come?”