her housemaid had something to do with his usefulness in the bedrooms,
but she instantly dismissed it. There was the bottle of brandy, too,
which he had ordered from Rush's. When she had begged him to order
anything he wanted and cause it to be put down to her account, she had
not actually contemplated brandy. Then remembering that one of the most
necessary conditions for progress in Yoga, was that the disciple should
have complete confidence in the Guru, she chased that also out of her
mind. But still, even when the lines of all possible policies were
written down, she could come to no decision, and putting her paper by
her bed, decided to sleep over it. The rhythmical sounds of hallowed
breathing came steadily from next door, and she murmured "Om, Om," in
time with them.

The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time
which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each
other. They went about from shop to shop on household businesses,
occasionally making purchases which they carried away with them in
little paper parcels with convenient loops of string, but the real
object of these excursions was to see what everybody else was doing,
and learn what fresh interests had sprung up like mushrooms during the
night. Georgie would be matching silks at the draper's, and very
naturally he would carry them from the obscurity of the interior to the
door in order to be certain about the shades, and keep his eye on the
comings and goings in the street, and very naturally Mr Lucas on his
way to the market gardener's to enquire whether he had yet received the
bulbs from Holland, would tell him that Lucia had received the
piano-arrangement of the Mozart trio. Georgie for his part would mention
that Hermy and Ursy were expected that evening, and Peppino enriched by
this item would "toddle on," as his phrase went, to meet and exchange
confidences with the next spy. He had noticed incidentally that Georgie