something— Yes, well, he says that box—oh! I couldn't tell you how much it isn't worth! And all the gold things with just a sort of faint reddy touch. . . . But anyhow, she is rich, as well as charming and beautiful. And really you know, Mr. Melville, altogether— Well, I'm going to help her, just as much as ever I can. Practically, she's to be our paying guest. As you know—it's no great secret between us—Adeline— Yes. . . . She'll be the same. And I shall bring her out and introduce her to people and so forth. It will be a great help. And for everyone except just a few intimate friends, she is to be just a human being who happens to be an invalid—temporarily an invalid—and we are going to engage a good, trustworthy woman—the sort of woman who isn't astonished at anything, you know—they're a little expensive but they're to be got even nowadays—who will be her maid—and make her dresses, her skirts at any rate—and we shall dress her in long skirts—and throw something over It, you know———"
"Over———?"
"The tail, you know."
My cousin Melville said "Precisely!" with his head and eyebrows. But that was the point that hadn't been clear to him so far, and it took his breath away. Positively—a tail! All sorts of incorrect theories went by the board. Somehow he felt this was a topic not to be too urgently pursued. But he and Mrs. Bunting were old friends.
"And she really has. . . a tail?" he asked.
"Like the tail of a big mackerel," said Mrs. Bunting, and he asked no more.
341
