“I am, Madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“A. J. Semaphore.”
This was enclosed in an envelope addressed to “X. Y. Z., Office of the Lady’s Pictorial.” Next morning Miss Semaphore carried it herself to the post.
CHAPTER III.
MISS SEMAPHORE RECEIVES AN ANSWER.
“I am perfectly proportioned,” said the medical lady confidentially to Mrs. Whitley.
Mrs. Whitley would not have thought so herself, but she made an assenting murmur, out of politeness.
They were seated at breakfast two or three mornings later, and the medical lady’s statement was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Semaphore, who glided quietly to her place, and took up her correspondence with some appearance of anxiety.
“Perfectly proportioned,” went on the medical lady in a lower key; “my dressmaker says she has no difficulty therefore in fitting me, and my gowns always sit well. I don’t say this out of vanity. It is a fact. I fear, however, it would be no use giving her address to other people, for the result might not be as satisfactory.”
Mrs. Whitley looked insulted, but she was a timid woman, and not ready of speech. She thought the medical lady’s dress clumsy, and her figure shapeless, but had indiscreetly asked who made it—the dress, not the figure—with a view to employing the woman on some plain sewing. The medical lady’s answer to her question had offended her very much, but she could not think of anything cutting to say in reply.