Like an elongated armchair, it looked quaint, neat, and dumpy, pushed up against the wall between the black fireplace on the right and the little window shaded with the muslin blinds, under which a pot of greenstuff bloomed freshly. She lay back thinking vaguely, her cup of hot tea uppermost in her mind, hoping that Mrs. Ede would not keep her waiting long; and then, as her thoughts detached themselves, she remembered the actor whom they expected that afternoon. The annoyances which he had unconsciously caused her had linked him to her in a curious way, and all her prejudices vanished in the sensation of nearness that each succeeding hour magnified, and she wondered who this being was who had brought so much trouble into her life even before she had seen him. As the word 'trouble' went through her mind she paused, arrested by a passing feeling of sentimentality; but it explained nothing, defined nothing, only touched her as a breeze does a flower, and floated away. The dreamy warmth of the fire absorbed her more direct feelings, and for some moments she dozed in a haze of dim sensuousness and emotive numbness. As in a dusky glass, she saw herself a tender, loving, but unhappy woman; by her side were her querulous husband and her kindly-minded mother-in-law, and then there was a phantom she could not determine, and behind it something into which she could not see. Was it a distant country? Was it a scene of revelry? Impossible to say, for whenever she attempted to find definite shapes in the glowing colours they vanished in a blurred confusion.

But amid these fleeting visions there was one shape that particularly interested her, and she pursued it tenaciously, until in a desperate effort to define its features she awoke with a start and spoke more crossly than she intended to the little girls, who had pulled aside the curtain and were intently examining the huge theatrical poster that adorned the corner of the lane. But as she scolded she could not help smiling; for she saw how her dream had been made out of the red and blue dresses of the picture.

The arrival of each new company in the town was announced pictorially on this corner wall, and, in the course of the year, many of the vicissitudes to which human life is liable received illustration upon it. Wrecks at sea, robberies on the highways, prisoners perishing in dungeons, green lanes and lovers, babies, glowing hearths, and heroic young husbands. The opera companies exhibited the less serious sides of life—strangely dressed people and gallants kissing their hands to ladies standing on balconies.

The little girls examined these pictures and commented on them; and on Saturdays it was a matter of the keenest speculation what the following week would bring them. Lizzie preferred exciting scenes of murder and arson, while Annie was moved more by leavetakings and declarations of unalterable affection. These differences of taste often gave rise to little bickerings, and last week there had been much prophesying as to whether the tragic or the sentimental element would prove next week's attraction. Lizzie had voted for robbers and mountains, Annie for lovers and a nice cottage. And, remembering their little dispute, Kate said:

'Well, dears, is it a robber or a sweetheart?'

'We're not sure,' exclaimed both children in a disappointed tone of voice; 'we can't make the picture out.' Then Lizzie, who cared little for uncertainties, said:

'It isn't a nice picture at all; it is all mixed up.'

'Not a nice picture at all, and all mixed up?' said Kate, smiling, yet interested in the conversation. 'And all mixed up; how is that? I must see if I can make it out myself.'

The huge poster contained some figures nearly life-size. It showed a young girl in a bridal dress and wreath struggling between two police agents, who were arresting her in a marketplace of old time, in a strangely costumed crowd, which was clamouring violently. The poor bridegroom was being held back by his friends; a handsome young man in knee-breeches and a cocked hat watched the proceedings cynically in the right-hand corner, whilst on the left a big fat man frantically endeavoured to recover his wig, that had been lost in the mêlée. The advertisement was headed, 'Morton and Cox's Operatic Company,' and concluded with the announcement that Madame Angot would be played at the Queen's Theatre. After a few moments spent in examining the picture Kate said it must have something to do with France.

'I know what it means,' cried Lizzie; 'you see that old chap on the right? He's the rich man who has sent the two policemen to carry the bride to his castle, and it's the young fellow in the corner who has betrayed them.'

The ingenuity of this explanation took Kate and Annie so much by surprise that for the moment they could not attempt to controvert it, and remained silent, whilst Lizzie looked at them triumphantly. The more they examined the picture the more clear did it appear that Lizzie was right. At the end of a long pause Kate said:

'Anyhow, we shall soon know, for one of the actors of the company is coming here to lodge, and we'll ask him.'

'A real actor coming here to lodge?' exclaimed Annie. 'Oh, how nice that will be! And will he take us to see the play?'

'How silly of you, Annie!' said Lizzie, who, proud of her successful explanation of the poster, was a little inclined to think she knew all about actors. 'How can he take us to the play? Isn't he going to act it himself? But do tell me, Mrs. Ede—is he the one in the cocked hat?'

'I hope he isn't the fat man who has lost his wig,' Annie murmured under her breath.

'I don't know which of those gentlemen is coming here. For all I know it may be the policeman,' Kate added maliciously.

'Don't say that, Mrs. Ede!' Annie exclaimed.

Kate smiled at the children's earnestness, and, wishing to keep up the joke, said:

'You know, my dear, they are only sham policemen, and I dare say are very nice gentlemen in reality.'

Annie and Lizzie hung down their heads; it was evident they had no sympathies with policemen, not even with sham ones.

'But if it isn't a policeman, who would you like it to be, Lizzie?' said
Kate.

'Oh, the man in the cocked hat,' replied Lizzie without hesitation.

'And you, Annie?'

Annie looked puzzled, and after a moment said with a slight whimper:

'Lizzie always takes what I want—I was just going—'

'Oh yes, miss, we know all about that,' returned Lizzie derisively. 'Annie never can choose for herself; she always tries to imitate me. She'll have the man who's lost his wig! Oh yes, yes! Isn't it so, Mrs. Ede? Isn't Annie going to marry the man who's lost his wig?'

Tears trembled in Annie's eyes, but as she happened at that moment to catch sight of the young man in white, she declared triumphantly that she would choose him.

'Well done, Annie!' said Kate, laughing as she patted the child's curls, but her eyes fell on the neglected apron, and seeing how crookedly it was being hemmed, she said:

'Oh, my dear, this is very bad; you must go back, undo all you have done this morning, and get it quite straight.'

She undid some three or four inches of the sewing, and then showed the child how the hem was to be turned in, and while she did so a smile hovered round the corners of her thin lips, for she was thinking of the new lodger, asking herself which man in the picture was coming to lodge in her house.

Mrs. Ede returned, talking angrily, but Kate could only catch the words 'waiting' and 'breakfast cold' and 'sorry.' At last, out of a confusion of words a reproof broke from her mother-in-law for not having roused her.

'I called and called,' said Kate, 'but nothing would have awakened you.'

'You should have knocked at my door,' Mrs.