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gift to Clive. Hester and her friends had furnished it; her own taste and help had not been requested and she soon observed that the lovely bits of glass, of china, the one or two really good engravings that she bestowed upon the young ménage were exiled, in order that they might not disturb a unity of design with which they jarred. How she disliked Hester’s drawing-room!—so gaunt, so glaring, so unadjusted to human needs and frailties, so cut off from all complicity with the past. It seemed to challenge you to disagree with it as you entered, to nudge you maliciously on its angular chairs, to suffocate you surreptitiously with the many cushions of its enormous divan. On the walls, the perspective of the few pictures slanted dizzily towards you; you wanted to push the knife, the mug, the herring and the apple back to equilibrium. On the mantelpiece stood three small sculptured animals, menacing in their solid, misshapen vitality. The batik curtains of a dramatic purple shade seemed inappropriate as a background to afternoon tea and London gossip. In Hester’s drawing-room she had felt herself an anachronism, a half-absurd survival. But Hester’s friends went well with it. They were often drab and dusty and often picturesque and brightly coloured, but whether they lounged on the