Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/146

 to her. Major Blanstock found her a house in South Audley Street and helped her furnish it and found servants for her and so forth and so on. He even introduced her to Connie Maitland—as a short cut to knowing everybody, which I gather was her ambition.

Certainly there is no one to equal Connie for that. You have seen men in the street, unloading bricks from a cart and tossing them, three or four at a time, from one to another? Should Connie ever sustain a reverse, she will always have a second string to her bow. . . Major Blanstock tossed this Mrs. Sawyer to Connie, Connie tossed her to me. . . I was expected, I presume, to toss her on to some one else, but I happen to have been brought up in a different school; before I undertake the responsibility of introducing a complete stranger, I like to know something about her. Goodness me, I don’t suggest that my recommendation counts for anything, but for my own peace of mind, when somebody says “Oh, I met her at Lady Ann’s”—there is an implied guarantee—, I want to feel that my friends’ confidence is not misplaced.

“Now, Major Blanstock,” I said, “I want you to tell me all about your lovely young divinity, the rich widow. If I am to befriend her, I must know a little about her.”

I imagine that I was not the first enquirer,