I44 ANGEL PAVEMENT

They were all listening now? all at peace for the

moment.

"Oh, it was too ridiculous," cried Mrs. Dersingham,
despairingly racking her brains to remember something
amusing in that letter, or, failing that, something
amusing in any letter she had ever had from anybody.
"You know what Alice is-at least, you do, my dear, and
so do you. I suppose it isn't really funny unless you
know her. You see, the minute I read a letter of hers,
of course I can see her in my mind and hear her voice
and all that sort of thing, and unless you can do that,
well, I dare say it isn't so funny after all. But, you see,
Alice-she's my youngest sister, I must explain; and they
live down in Devon—oh, miles from anywhere. Will
you ring, please, darling? Well, Alice has a dog, the
absu-u-urdest creature—"

She struggled through with it somehow, and fortun-
ately cook made such a noise clearing and then serving
the sweet that most of the anecdote, presumably the
funniest part, was lost in the clatter. The cook had been
so noisy, so incredibly heavy in her breathing, and so
obviously disapproving, when she was serving the sweet,
that Mrs. Dersingham dare not have her up again to
clear the table for dessert, so as the fruit plates and the
finger-bowls, the port decanter and glasses, were all on
the sideboard, she made a joke of it—showing the last
gleam of vivacity she felt she would be able to show for
months—and she and Dersingham, assisted by Mr.
Pearson, who said—tee-tee-tee-tee-tee—that he was used
to clearing a table, having been well brought up, did
what they could to make the dinner look as if it were
coming to a civilised end. Mrs. Dersingham felt that
Mr. Golspie, plainly a porty sort of man, and Major