CHAPTER VII.
CECILIA'S SCATTERED THOUGHTS In her morning room Mrs.Stephen Dallison sat at an old oak bureau collecting her scattered thoughts.

They lay about on pieces of stamped notepaper, beginning "Dear Cecilia," or "Mrs.Tallents Smallpeace requests," or on bits of pasteboard headed by the names of theatres, galleries, or concert-halls; or, again, on paper of not quite so good a quality, commencing, "Dear Friend," and ending with a single well-known name like "Wessex," so that no suspicion should attach to the appeal contained between the two.

She had before her also sheets of her own writing-paper, headed "76, The Old Square, Kensington," and two little books.

One of these was bound in marbleised paper, and on it written: "Please keep this book in safety"; across the other, cased in the skin of some small animal deceased, was inscribed the solitary word "Engagements." Cecilia had on a Persian-green silk blouse with sleeves that would have hidden her slim hands, but for silver buttons made in the likeness of little roses at her wrists; on her brow was a faint frown, as though she were wondering what her thoughts were all about.

She sat there every morning catching those thoughts, and placing them in one or other of her little books.