The duty-impulse, stimulated by my call yesterday on one aunt by marriage, led my footsteps this afternoon to the house of the other, Mrs. Ralph Ordeyne.  She is of a different type from her sister-in-law, being a devout Roman Catholic, and since the terrible affliction of two years ago has concerned herself more deeply than ever in the affairs of her religion.  She lives in a gloomy little house in a sunless Kensington by-street.  Only my Cousin Rosalie was at home.  She gave me tea made with tepid water and talked about the Earl’s Court Exhibition, which she had not visited, and a new novel, of which she had vaguely heard.  I tried in vain to infuse some life into the conversation.  I don’t believe she is interested in anything.  She even spoke lukewarmly of Farm Street.

I pity her intensely.  She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless.  I should say she was passionless—­a predestined spinster.  She has never drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh.  I remember once, at my wit’s end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he might know whether he was anybody in particular.  She said, without a smile, “Yes, it was astonishing how rude some people could be.”

And her godfathers and godmothers gave her the name of Rosalie.  Mine might just as well have called me Hercules or Puck.

She told me that her mother intended to ask me to dine with them one evening next week.  When was I free?  I chose Thursday.  Oddly enough I enjoy dining there, although we are on the most formal terms, not having got beyond the “Sir Marcus” and “Mrs. Ordeyne.”  But both mother and daughter are finely bred gentlewomen, and one meets few, oh, very, very few among the ladies of to-day.

I reached home about six and found a telegram awaiting me.

“Sorry can’t give you dinner.  Cook in an impossible condition.  Come later. Judith.”

I must confess to a sigh of relief.  I am fond of Judith and sorry for her domestic infelicities, though why she should maintain that alcoholized wretch in her kitchen passes my comprehension.  If there is one thing women do not understand it is the selection, the ordering, and the treatment of domestic servants.  The mere man manages much better.  But, that aside, Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith’s cook’s cookery.  I breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform him that I would dine at home.

A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived during dinner.  Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro Gianone’s Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, a copy of which I ought to have possessed long ago.  It is dedicated to the “Most Puissant and Felicitous Prince Charles VI, the Great, by God crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of Germany, Spain, Naples, Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, etcetera.”  Is there a living