IT was the Thursday before Good Friday, and in the Tregennis household there was great excitement and joyous expectancy. Mrs. Tregennis had sung softly to herself all the while she was dressing, greatly to the annoyance of the Naval Officer’s wife, who was invariably irritated when people hummed. She was irritated, too, by Mrs. Tregennis’s happy manner when she carried in the downstairs sitting-room breakfast; and again when breakfast was over and was being cleared away.

Then, however, curiosity got the better of hurt dignity. “What time do the ladies come?” she asked.

“At ten minutes after six, ma’am.”

“Ah, then perhaps I had better defer my call until to-morrow. They will have many little matters to occupy them this evening.”

“How do you mean ‘call,’ Ma’am?” asked Mrs. Tregennis anxiously, feeling that there was probably trouble ahead.

“I mean that I shall, of course, visit them at once,” replied Annabel’s mother in her most affected manner. “If I approve of them, and find that they belong to my own social grade, I shall most certainly take them up and show them every civility.”

“I don’t think the young ladies will want to trouble about visitors and such,” retorted Mrs. Tregennis hotly. “They be all for bein’ out and sittin’ on the rocks, be our ladies, and they’ve got each other, an’ they don’t want nothin’ more. And they’m just of the very best, ma’am, our ladies; truly lovely people they be.”

“They did not scruple to send you an unstamped letter, these people, who are of the very best; but perhaps you think the stamp rubbed off in the post?”

“No’m, I don’t think that, there was never no stamp on at all, there was no gummy corner, nor nothin’. ’Tis lucky that my husband had more sense than me an’ took it in. The ladies gave it to some one to post, I guess, with a penny for a stamp, and the stamp was never put on. Save a penny like that! Them!” Mrs. Tregennis hurried from the room with her heavily loaded tray.

To Mrs. Tregennis the hours of that Thursday passed very slowly. The rooms for the ladies had been cleaned and prepared the day before, but more than once she went into the upstairs sitting-room, and tried to improve the hang of the curtains and the arrangement of the flowers that looked so many more than they really were because of their reflection in the overmantel glass. Once she ran hurriedly upstairs and again inspected her drawer of bedroom towels to make quite sure that she had put out the biggest and the best. Once, too, she walked into the ladies’ bedroom and rather anxiously inspected the cake of pink soap that fitted so neatly into the perforated tray of the soap-dish, and wondered if it was just exactly what they would really like the best of all. In the middle of the morning two trunks arrived as luggage in advance. When these had been carried upstairs and placed at the foot of the bed the carman’s foot-marks were removed with a duster, and nothing further remained to be done.

When Tommy burst in from school soon after four o’clock, his first breathless words were, “Have my ladies come yet, Mammy?” and so restless and excited was he that he could scarcely be induced to have tea.

When he was released from the table he ran out into the alley, and, refusing all invitations to dig on the sands, he played round his own doorway so that he might catch the first glimpse of his ladies when they actually did arrive. Just before half-past six, however, when he peeped round the corner and saw them coming, he was seized with shyness and ran hastily into the kitchen, and hid in the cupboard among the coals.

Before they could shake hands Mrs. Tregennis must give hers a last wipe on the oven cloth, while Tregennis rubbed both of his slowly up and down the legs of his trousers. Then there was much talking, but as they all talked together no one heard distinctly anything that anyone else said.

When finally one voice arose above the rest it belonged to the Blue Lady. “Oh, how deliciously those chops are sizzeling; we’re just as hungry as hunters.” Then, “Where’s Tommy?” she asked.

Mrs. Tregennis looked around puzzled, then put her head out of the window. “He was here but a minute since, excited as could be.”

Then she bethought herself of the cupboard and opened the door revealing her handsome among the coals. In his eagerness to hide he had fallen, and hands and face were black with coal-dust.

“Come forth, Tommy,” he was commanded, and, grinning shyly, he obeyed.

“Now, stand perfectly still,” and, stooping, the Blue Lady selected a cleanish spot on his face and there she kissed him.

Tommy, completely forgetting his orders, flung his arms around her neck, leaving impressions in coal-dust on her linen collar and on her face.

“It isn’t of the least consequence,” she assured Mrs. Tregennis. “They’ll both wash.”

As they walked upstairs to their own sitting-room the Blue Lady slipped her hand into the Brown Lady’s saying, “Oh, Dorothea, isn’t it good to be here? Just good, good, good!”

Before they had quite finished tea there was a muffled sound on the door and some one walked into the room.

“We’ve had a beautiful tea, Mrs. Tregennis. We’ve each eaten a huge chop, but, as usual, I didn’t get my fair share of cream.” Then the Blue Lady stopped abruptly for she read in her friend’s face that something was wrong. Turning she saw that a stranger stood in the room.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, rising, with a touch of hauteur in her voice, “I thought it was Mrs. Tregennis who came in when the door opened.” Then she waited.

The stranger responded with what was meant to be a winning smile. “My little girl and I are in the downstairs sitting-room,” she began to explain, “and I came in now——”

“Ah, I understand,” interrupted the Blue Lady, more warmth in her tone. “You have moved down there for us, and came in here now absentmindedly?”

“Not at all,” exclaimed the Naval Officer’s wife, as she sat down unasked. “I came to welcome you to Draeth.”

Meeting with no answer she continued. “There is no society at all here, no intellectual companionship, nothing but the commonplace life of an insignificant fishing-town. Lest you should be dull, Annabel, my babe, and I will place all our spare hours at your disposal.”

“I am sure you mean very kindly.” The Brown Lady, who still dabbed at jam and cream with her knife, grew hot when she heard the calm even tones proceeding. “But we have come down here purposely to avoid the rush of the S——; that is, to be quiet and alone. I am sure you will understand when I say that we wish for no companionship but that of each other, during the short time we are here.”

As the Blue Lady spoke she opened the door, and with a slight inclination bowed the visitor from the room.

“Oh, Margaret!” The Blue Lady flicked crumbs across the table with unerring aim.

“No, Margaret, it’s no good being flippant and playing like that, I will speak. You were very rude to her, and you know you were.”

“Yes, I think I was, but courteously rude. How else could you treat a woman like that. Let’s have Mrs. Tregennis up and find out who in the name of fortune she is, and after that we’ll run down to the sea.”

The Blue Lady rang the bell, then singing, she whirled the little Brown Lady round and round the room:

“I’m out of breath,” panted the Brown Lady.

“Do stop this jigging round, and this ridiculous impromptu rhyming. You were just like this when we were here before, but being nearly a year older now you ought to know better. Here’s Mrs. Tregennis, so you must stop.”

“Mrs. Tregennis,” the Blue Lady burst forth. “Who is she? Where did she come from? Why is she here? And how long does she mean to stay?”

“Oh, Miss, ’tis brave an’ sorry I be. I told her this morning as how you wouldn’t want to be taken up, but she would come. There she be now ringin’ and ringin’ her bell. Always in a fanteague about somethin’, she be.”

“Well, go and see what she wants; all this can wait, for we’re going out.”

Hatless the two friends ran downstairs and out, in the fading light, to the sea.

From the very way in which the bell was ringing Mrs. Tregennis knew that no pleasant moments awaited her in the downstairs sitting-room.

First of all there was a complaint about supper. It had been ordered for a quarter past seven; it was now ten minutes past seven, and the cloth was not even laid. “You must remember that I am most particular about punctuality, Mrs. Tregennis, nothing displeases me more than to have meals late. I hope that because two strangers have come here for a few weeks you will not neglect me and my child.”

Mrs. Tregennis stood, silent, and outwardly patient. “Do you know at all who they are?” continued her exasperating lodger. “The taller one said they had come down from London to avoid the rush of the s——. Then she stopped. What could there be beginning with ‘s’ that they should wish to escape?”

“Supper begins with ‘s,’ and it’ll be fine an’ late ma’am, if I don’t go and see about it.” And Mrs. Tregennis escaped from the room.

When she returned the naval officer’s wife spoke with excitement. “I’ve found out,” she cried. “They’re shop girls!” and paused, to give dramatic emphasis to her words.

As Mrs. Tregennis appeared quite unmoved she continued. “To escape from the rush of the s——! Of course there must be sales on in the London shops now, and they’ve managed to save up money enough to come down here to rest until the sales are over, then they will go back again to work. You had better see that they pay beforehand for all they have, or you may find yourself in Queer Street when they go away.”

“Mrs. Radford!” Mrs. Tregennis had never before addressed her lodger by name, so it was all the more impressive. “Mrs. Radford, I’ll not hear one word against our ladies. They haven’t thought fit to tell me who they be, and ’tis no business of mine. Shop girls or no, I cannot say, but they’m real ladies, whatever they be, and I’ll not hear a word against them, so there’s where ’tis to.”

“You need not become angry, my good woman. Their appearance is certainly not in their favour, for they are almost shabbily dressed; plain blue and brown Norfolk suits that are by no means new. When they arrived I looked through the window most particularly to see their style of dress, and I may say I was by no means favourably impressed.”

“If you’d like to know, ma’am, they’re the very clothes they wore down here last year, an’ they weren’t new then. Very sootable to Draeth they be to my way of thinkin’. But I don’t want to talk about them to you at all, if you don’t mind, ma’am. It seems sort of an insult to our ladies to be discussin’ their clothes an’ such. And if you’ll ring when you’ve finished, ma’am, I’ll come in again to clear away.”