I soon decided that there must be at least one woman say of the age of fifty, one young woman, one little child, sex doubtful, and one man probably young.

Further than this it was impossible to conjecture.

Thus I made the rough guess that a young man and his wife, a child, and a mother-in-law were among the inhabitants of this idyllic cottage.
But the clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a puzzle.

Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive lace?
And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately clocked and open-worked silk stockings walked invisible through the world.
Nor was the lace any ordinary expensive English lace, such as any good shop can supply.

Indeed, I recognised it as being of a Parisian design as yet little known in England; while on the tops of the stockings I laughingly suspected a border designed by a certain eccentric artist, who devotes his strange gifts to decorating with fascinating miniatures the under-world of woman.