ANGEL PAVEMENT

did just look in, put her face round the door and smile
apologetically at everybody and say that it was too
absurd and annoying and that the two of them, she and
Mrs. Pearson, would be back again in a fexv minutes.
She spent the rest of the time superintending the salvage
work outside the dining-room door and helping cook
to find enough fresh plates to warm. She felt hot, dis-
hevelled and miserable. She could have cried. Indeed,
that was why she did not slip upstairs to her bedroom
to look at herself and powder her nose, for once there,
really alone with herself, she was sure she would have
cried. Oh, it was all too hateful for words!

"There!" And Mrs. Pearson stood before her, breath-
less, flushed, and happy, and whipped off the lid of a
silver dish.

, "Oh!" cried Mrs. Dersingham, in the very reek of
the omelette, a fine large specimen. "You angel! It's
absolutely perfect."

"I remembered we had some eggs, and then I remem-
bered we had a bottle of mushrooms tucked away same-
where, and so I rushed upstairs and made this mushroom
omelette. It ought to be nice. I used to be good with
omelettes."

"It's marvellous. And I don't know how to begin to
thank you, my dear." And Mrs. Dersingham meant it
From that moment, Mrs. Pearson ceased to be a merely
foolish if kindly neighbour and became a friend, worthy
of the most secret confidences. In the steam of the
omelette, rich as the smoke of burnt offerings, this
friendship began, and Mrs. Dersingham never tasted
a mushroom afterwards without being reminded
of it

''Don't think of it, my dear," saicl Mrs. Pearson