"No, ma'am, only Neddy. His father had him called Edward J. Phillip, but he's always been Neddy to me. The rest are Mr. Bindon's."
"The rest are Mr. Bindon's! Jane! what do you mean?"
There was a ring, a good loud ring, at the front door bell. The woman clasped her hands.
"There's the rest of them," she cried. "Oh, don't let them come in here."
"The rest of them?"
"The other Mrs. Bindons."
Mrs. Harland clutched at the back of a chair.
"The other Mrs. Bindons?"
"They're always going on at me, and making fun of me, and pinching me. Oh! don't let them come in here."
The little woman's distress appeared to be genuine. She wrung her hands. Her tears fell unheeded to the floor. Mrs. Harland gazed at her both open-mouthed and open-eyed. Before she had recovered her presence of mind sufficiently to enable her to understand the cause of her visitor's emotion the door opened, and there entered unannounced--a magnificent woman! She was very tall, and very stately, and very fat. She weighed seventeen stone if she weighed an ounce. Her costume was very different to that of the dowdy Jane. She was attired from head to foot in red. She had on a red stuff dress with a train. A scarlet mantle accentuated with its splendours the upper portion of her person. She wore a red hat, adorned with a red feather. And her face--as far as hue was concerned, her face matched her attire. She surveyed Mrs. Harland through a pair of pince-nez. "Mrs. Harland! So it is! How delightful! I should have known you anywhere--you haven't altered hardly a bit."