Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/12

 herself as the object of the speakers' comments. She could not laugh at the words, because they were true. She was lonely, she had no men friends to take her about, and yet, and yet

"Twenty-seven," she muttered indignantly, "and I was only twenty-four last November." She identified the two speakers as Miss Elizabeth Wangle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe.

Miss Wangle was the great-niece of a bishop, and to have a bishop in heaven is a great social asset on earth. This ecclesiastical distinction seemed to give her the right of leadership at the Galvin House Residential Hotel. Whenever a new boarder arrived, the unfortunate bishop was disinterred and brandished before his eyes.

One facetious young man in the "commercial line" had dubbed her "the body-snatcher," and, being inordinately proud of his jeu d'esprit, he had worn it threadbare, and Miss Wangle had got to know of it. The result was the sudden departure of the wit. Miss Wangle had intimated to Mrs. Craske-Morton, the proprietress, that if he remained she would go. Mrs. Craske-Morton considered that Miss Wangle gave tone to Galvin House.

Miss Wangle was acid of speech and barren of pity Scandal and "the dear bishop" were her chief preoccupations. She regularly read The Morning Post, which she bought, and The Times, which she borrowed. In her attitude towards royalty she was a Jacobite, and of the aristocracy she knew no wrong.