bound it gave at her amazing reply.

"Ah," she said, "how do you do?"--and her manner had that violent
absent-mindedness which almost always proves that its possessor has
trained a large family of children--"I am so glad that you can be
with us to-day. I am Mrs. Manners--forgive me," she besought with
perfectly self-possessed distractedness, "I'm afraid that I've
forgotten your name."

"My name is St. George," he answered as well as he could for virtual
speechlessness.

The other members of the Guild were issuing from the room, and Mrs.
Manners turned. She had a fashion of smiling enchantingly, as if to
compensate her total lack of attention.

"Ladies," she said, "this is Mr. St. George, at last."

Then she went through their names to him, and St. George bowed and
caught at the flying end of the name of the woman nearest him, and
muttered to them all. The one nearest was a Miss Bella Bliss Utter,
a little brown nut of a woman with bead eyes.

"Ah, Mr. St. George," said Miss Utter rapidly, "it has been a
wonderful meeting. I wish you might have been with us. Fortunately
for us you are just in time for our third floor council."

It had been said of St. George that when he was writing on space and
was in need, buildings fell down before him to give him two columns
on the first page; but any architectural manoeuvre could not have