“But what has happened? Has someone been making mischief?”

“Not exactly,” said Clovis; “a hen came between them.”

“A hen? What hen?”

“It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it to Jane at a rather exotic price. They both go in for prize poultry, you know, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a large family of pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an abstainer from the egg habit, and I’m told that the letters which passed between the two women were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a sheet of notepaper.”

“How ridiculous!” said Mrs. Sangrail. “Couldn’t some of their friends compose the quarrel?”