Page:The venture; an annual of art and literature.djvu/65

 POOR LITTLE MRS. VILLIERS.

"Where is little Mrs. Villiers?" demanded Miss Hooley. The question was prefaced by a disconcerting gaze directed towards the new-comer in the seat opposite—a seat presumably occupied as a rule by the lady of the diminutive.

Mrs. Lawrence concealed a smile. Though her schooldays were now somewhat dim memories, she felt distinctly like the new girl who is expected to apologize for her existence. Glancing down the long table she was aware that a pension bore a ghastly resemblance to a boarding-school, twenty years after. Was "little Mrs. Villiers" the popular girl, she wondered? And if so, on what grounds?

"She's changed her place," volunteered Miss Pembridge, a spare lady, who dressed with the chastened smartness of one ever mindful of her high calling as the niece of a bishop.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. She will be a great loss to our table, dear little thing," exclaimed Miss Mullins. She delivered the remark, amiable in substance, with the air of one hurling a bomb-shell, and Mrs. Lawrence awaited the explosion of the apparently harmless missile with some curiosity. Its effect was almost instantaneous.

"That's entirely a matter of opinion," ejaculated Miss Rigg, her opposite neighbour. The observation was attended by a prolonged sniff, and Miss Mullins' comfortable fat face