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142 come out, we all kissed each other and went to bed, to prepare ourselves for the duties and fatigues of the next intolerable day."

Lucia drew down the corners of her mouth, making what she called "archdeacon face."

"Not that we hadn't our times of delirious excitement," she said, "which gave us headaches. There were the garden-parties. The Bishop came once, and the garden, being exactly eight feet by ten (I used to play lawn-tennis in it with Aunt Cathie, who wore sand-shoes), and there being nine people present as well as a tea-table, it was quite a crush. The Bishop drank three cups of tea, and said the flower-bed was a blaze of colour. He preached next Sunday about the gardens of our souls, which made us feel public characters. Aunt Elizabeth almost deprecated such publicity. Everybody knew he had called the flower-bed a blaze of colour."

Lucia suddenly became quite serious.

"Oh, Maud, I could cry to think of the wasted years! What wouldn't I give for just the time I spent there, or the time that Aunt Elizabeth is spending now! She doesn't care for it. She gets no enjoyment from it, any more than she gets from the best silver teapot which was presented to my grandfather the Dean, and is never taken out of its tissue-paper. It's not fair. I grudge people having things they don't use and don't enjoy, when I could use them so beautifully. They ought to be mine—they really ought."

Lucia had not changed in the least; Maud felt that more strongly than ever at the end of this brilliant piece of egotism, but she had certainly developed. Whether that development was satisfactory or not, Maud did not, for the present, inquire. The charm of Lucia's vitality held her again; it was mental champagne to be with anyone who felt so keenly, who desired so greatly.

She laughed.

"Then would you propose to kill everyone who was not enjoying himself," she asked, "and put the years he would otherwise have lived to your credit balance?"

Lucia's eyes lit up.

"Ah, if it could be done!" she said. "Surely it would be an admirable arrangement. It would be a true kindness to put them out of their boredom, just as you put suffering animals out of their pain. Can't we manage it? Edgar shall bring in a Bill for the extinction of the bored in the House of Lords. It