TWENTY-FOUR‘May I come in, dear?’
Mrs. Voycey, who was doing accounts, turned her head. She beheld Miss Silver attired for walking in her second-best hat which resembled her best so closely that it would have been indistinguishable from it but for the fact of being trimmed with a band of plain petersham instead of an abundance of satin loops. In either case there was a small nosegay of flowers on the left-hand side, but the everyday bunch was smaller, older, flatter, and consisted of a tired wallflower in a pale circle of mignonette, repeating the tones of the elderly fur neck-tie much treasured for its draught-excluding qualities. The black cloth coat remained the same whether it was Sunday or week-day, and so did the neat black laced shoes and black woollen stockings which it was Miss S
