Sometimes she would give them a tip on the Stock Exchange; not that Mrs. Small or Aunt Hester ever took it. They had indeed no money to invest; but it seemed to bring them into such exciting touch with the realities of life. It was an event. They would ask Timothy, they said. But they never did, knowing in advance that it would upset him. Surreptitiously, however, for weeks after they would look in that paper, which they took with respect on account of its really fashionable proclivities, to see whether Bright’s Rubies or The Woollen Mackintosh Company were up or down. Sometimes they could not find the name of the company at all; and they would wait until James or Roger or even Swithin came in, and ask them in voices trembling with curiosity how that Bolivia Lime and Speltrate was doing⁠—they could not find it in the paper.

And Roger would answer: “What do you want to know for? Some trash! You’ll go burning your fingers⁠—investing your money in lime, and things you know nothing about! Who told you?” and ascertaining what they had been told, he would go away, and, making inquiries in the City, would perhaps invest some of his own money in the concern.

It was about the middle of dinner, just in fact as the saddle of mutton had been brought in by Smither, that Mrs. MacAnder, looking airily round, said: “Oh! and whom do you think I passed today in Richmond Park? You’ll never guess⁠— Mrs. Soames and⁠— Mr. Bosinney. They must have been down to look at the house!”

Winifred Dartie coughed, and no one said a word. It was the piece of evidence they had all unconsciously been waiting for.