A Humble Enterprise - The Original Classic Edition. Ada Cambridge

that they should go and have some tea. "What!" exclaimed Tony. "Haven't you had enough tea for one afternoon?"

       "It was horribly bad tea," said she, "and I know a place where you can get it exceptionally good. I am just dying for a cup." "Where is your place?"

       "In Little Collins Street. The funniest place you ever saw."

       "Why, that must be the place Mary wouldn't take me to yesterday. She said men were not admitted." "Oh, what a story!"

       "Well, she said the people there didn't want them."

       "Stuff ! Of course they do. Didn't you hear Mrs. Bullivant say she was there yesterday with Captain what's-his-name, that charming new A.D.C.? No, you were flirting with Miss Baxter--oh, I saw you!--and had no eyes or ears for anybody else."

       "Then I presume I may accompany you, and have some tea too?"

       "Of course you may. You'll be charmed--everybody is. There are dear little chairs, in which you can actually rest yourself, and tables so high"--spreading her hand on a level with her knee. "And it's awfully retired and peaceful, if you want to talk. I only hope"--regardless of her previous efforts to compass that end--"that it won't get too well known. That would spoil it."

       Anthony stalked through the basket-maker's shop (that customers passed that way, in view of his wares, was a consideration that largely affected the rent, to Mrs. Liddon's advantage), and knocked his head and his elbows on the dark staircase, and thought it was indeed the funniest place of its kind that he had ever seen. But when he reached the tea-room, and looked round with his cultured eyes upon its singular appointments, he was quite as charmed as Maude had expected him to be, and more surprised than charmed.

       "How very extraordinary!" he ejaculated. "What an oasis in the howling desert of Little Collins Street!"

       15

       "Yes, isn't it?" returned Maude, jerking her head from side to side. "I knew you would like it. But, oh, do look how full it is! How tiresome of people to come flocking here, as if there were no other place in the whole town! There's hardly a table left. Oh, here's one! I'll get that girl to put it in the corner yonder. She knows me."

       "It will do here," said Anthony, with a little peremptory air that she was quite accustomed to. "Sit down."

       He dropped himself into a basket-chair, and it creaked ominously.

       "What a very extraordinary place!" he repeated, as his stepmother drew off her gloves in preparation for prolonged repose and conversation. Then, as Jenny advanced, blushing a little--for she knew this was the junior partner, and he stared at her intently--"What a very----" He left that sentence unfinished.

       "Tea and scones for two, if you please. Yes, she's quite a new type, isn't she?--like her tea-room. She's the daughter of old Liddon, who used to be in the office, and who was killed by being run over on the railway the other day. Mary says she's quite well educated."

       "What!" cried Anthony. He sat bolt upright in his chair. "Old Liddon dead! Good heavens! And his daughter keeping a restaurant! Why, I thought they rather prided themselves on being gentlefolks. The old man used to tell me he was an Eton boy--quite true, too."

       "He married his cook," said Mrs. Churchill--which was a libel, for poor old Mrs. Liddon's family was as "genteel" as her own--"and I suppose the girl takes after her. Mrs. Liddon's cooking talents are now exercised on the tea and scones that they sell here, and they do her credit, as you will see. I'm sure I wish to goodness I could find a good cook!"

       "If that is Miss Liddon," said Anthony, who was watching the screen for her reappearance, "I think I ought to speak to her."

       "Oh, no, you oughtn't, Tony. It would never do. Mary doesn't want men to talk to her. Mary is taking a great interest in her, you must know, and she'd like to keep men out of the room altogether--only she doesn't want to hinder custom--just for Miss Liddon's sake, for fear she should be taken liberties with, or annoyed in any way, as if she were a common waitress."

       This was a very injudicious speech, but then Maude was nearly always injudicious.

       "I don't annoy women," said her stepson severely; "and I am not 'men.' I am a partner of the firm that has lost her father's servic-

       es--if we have lost them."

       "Oh, yes; he was killed on the spot--all smashed to little bits." "I would merely say a word--of sympathy, you know."

       "Don't do it, Tony; it would be most improper. If you attempt to scrape acquaintance with her I'll never bring you here again. Mary would blame me, and make a dreadful fuss."

       "Mary is so much in the habit of making a fuss, isn't she?"

       "I assure you she would. You see she wouldn't let you come yesterday. You can make your condolences to the brother in the office." So Anthony did not say anything to Miss Liddon, except "Thank you," in a very gentle tone. As she approached with the tea and