Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/117

 , with their assurance and massed information. One feels that there is no subject on which they will not put one right if one has the temerity to open one’s mouth. Judge of my surprise when Mrs. Surdan wrote that she would like to come and ask my advice. My advice! “This is your lucky day,” said Will, when I shewed him the letter. “Perhaps they want a house in London for the season.”

Until that moment I had thought of telling this Mrs. Surdan I was so busy that we must really postpone our meeting. Will’s quick brain warned me to do nothing hasty. I don’t know whether you remember the condition of Mount Street; we had not touched the house, inside or out, since the beginning of the war; and, whenever I spoke to my husband, he put his hands in his pockets and said: “Will you please tell me where the money’s coming from?” I’m not going to burden you with my own sordid cares; but we are not well-off, and, what with taxation and the rise in prices, Mount Street is rather a responsibility. I retain it because it is my frame and setting; any little niche that I may occupy is in Mount Street; and, when I part with the house, you may feel that I have indeed abdicated. This morning my tea was brought me on the tray that the