NUMBER THREE Adela Burton was laying the cloth for supper, and looking somewhat severe over the process.

She was usually cheerful at that hour of the day, for it brought her husband back from his work and, thanks to Dot's ministrations, the evening was free from toil.

It was seldom, indeed, that Adela bestirred herself to lay the cloth for any meal, for she maintained that it was better for a girl like Dot to have plenty to do at all times, and she herself preferred her needlework, at which she was an adept.
No one could have called her an idle woman, but she was eminently a selfish one.

She followed her own bent, quite regardless of the desires and inclinations of anyone else.

She was the hub of her world from her own point of view, and she was wholly incapable of recognizing any other.
Most people realized this and, as is the way of humanity, took her at her own valuation, making allowances for her undoubted egotism.