For the tragedy of which I am about to tell I consider that Brenda Scott is entirely to blame. You shall judge.

There is a vacancy in my domestic staff, and the rush to fill it has been less enthusiastic than I could wish. My housewifely heart leapt, therefore, when, last Thursday morning, I espied coming up the drive one whom I classed at once as an applicant for the post of housemaid. Nor was I deceived. She gave the name of Eliza Smudge, and said she came from my friend, Mrs. Copplestone.

My suspicions were first aroused by her extraordinary solicitude for my comfort. "Outings" were entirely according to my convenience. And when she added that she liked to have plenty to do, and that she always rose by 6 a.m., I began to look at her closely.

She wore a thick veil, and her eyes were further obscured by large spectacles, but I could discern a wisp of rather artificial-looking hair drawn across her forehead. And she was smiling.

Now why was she smiling? I could certainly see nothing to smile at in rising at six o'clock every morning.

"I shall be free on 5th of April, ma'am," she was saying. "Let me see, to-day is the 1st of April——"

The 1st of April! It came to me then in a flash—in one of those moments of intuition of which even the mind of the harassed housewife occasionally is capable. It was Brenda Scott masquerading as a housemaid!

Our conversation of a fortnight earlier came back to me—Brenda's desire to disguise herself and apply to Lady Lupin for the post of kitchenmaid, her confidence in her ability to carry it off successfully, my ridicule of the possibility that she could pass unrecognised. So now, on the 1st of April, she was for proving me wrong.

The disguise was certainly masterly. Had it not been for that unaccountable smile, and the hair——

I did not lose my head. I continued to carry on the conversation on orthodox lines. Then I said, "Do you know Miss Brenda Scott, who lives near Mrs. Copplestone?"

"Oh, yes, I've known her since she was a little girl," was the answer. "Sweet young lady she is."

"Ye—es," I said. "A little too fond of practical jokes, perhaps."

The eyebrows went up almost to the artificial-looking hair, which I had now decided was horse-hair.

"Indeed," she said.

"Yes, my dear Brenda, it is your besetting sin. You should pray against it," I said bluntly.

She stood up with an opposing air of surprise and alarm. But I was not to be deceived.

"Your assumed name, Eliza Smudge," I said, "gave you away at the start. And that hair—it is the tail of your nephew's rocking-horse, isn't it? And——"

But she had fled from the room and was scudding down the drive, heedless of my cries of "Brenda, you idiot, come back!"

As I watched from the front-door I saw that "Eliza Smudge" had met another woman in the lane and had engaged her in conversation.

Then they parted, and the other woman came in at the gate and up the drive.

"My dear Elfrida," said a well-known voice, "what have you been up to? You seem to have thoroughly upset that nice woman who was with the Copplestones so long. She told me you were a very strange lady; in fact she thought you must be suffering from a nervous breakdown."

I leaned for support against the door-post, feeling a little faint.

"Brenda? You?" I gasped. "I thought——"

"Such a splendid maid she is," Brenda went on. "You'll never find her equal if you try for ten years."