Her attitude had become very lax and despondent when the typewriter stopped in the next room.

Mary immediately drew up to the table, laid hands on an unopened envelope, and adopted an expression which might hide her state of mind from Mrs.Seal.Some instinct of decency required that she should not allow Mrs.Seal to see her face.

Shading her eyes with her fingers, she watched Mrs.Seal pull out one drawer after another in her search for some envelope or leaflet.

She was tempted to drop her fingers and exclaim: "Do sit down, Sally, and tell me how you manage it--how you manage, that is, to bustle about with perfect confidence in the necessity of your own activities, which to me seem as futile as the buzzing of a belated blue-bottle." She said nothing of the kind, however, and the presence of industry which she preserved so long as Mrs.Seal was in the room served to set her brain in motion, so that she dispatched her morning's work much as usual.

At one o'clock she was surprised to find how efficiently she had dealt with the morning.