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 Accordingly the check was paid into Pollyooly's Post-Office Savings Bank account. Then for a while her income was reduced to the eleven shillings a week she received for her work in the Temple, for Hilary Vance no longer required her as a model since he had finished illustrating the set of stories he had been at work on. Pollyooly was not distressed by this shrinking in her income. She had now a reserve fund on which she and the Lump could live for nearly two years, even if during them she did not earn a penny; and that was very unlikely indeed.

But fortune had fallen into the way of enriching Pollyooly; and she could not refrain from the agreeable practice for long at a time.

One afternoon she came back with the Lump from the gardens on the Thames Embankment rather later than usual; and the Honorable John Ruffin called to her from his sitting-room:

"Get tea for two, please, Mrs. Bride; and cut the bread and butter thin."

Pollyooly carried the Lump swiftly up to their attic, gave him his woolly lamb and his unmaned horse, ran down the stairs to the kitchen, and set