CHAPTER 4.
The next morning, on her breakfast tray, Miss Bart found a note from her hostess.
"Dearest Lily," it ran, "if it is not too much of a bore to be down by ten, will you come to my sitting-room to help me with some tiresome things ?" Lily tossed aside the note and subsided on her pillows with a sigh.

It WAS a bore to be down by ten--an hour regarded at Bellomont as vaguely synchronous with sunrise--and she knew too well the nature of the tiresome things in question.

Miss Pragg, the secretary, had been called away, and there would be notes and dinner-cards to write, lost addresses to hunt up, and other social drudgery to perform.

It was understood that Miss Bart should fill the gap in such emergencies, and she usually recognized the obligation without a murmur.
Today, however, it renewed the sense of servitude which the previous night's review of her cheque-book had produced.

Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity.