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too, but I have taken up serious writing now.”
    “Indeed! For Mr. Pepper, you mean?”
    “Pepper?” She stared, offended. “Certainly not, though I scribble up the odd article for him. Seven guineas always comes in handy to buy knickknacks.” Her eyes slid to the juniper water. “No, I am writing a biography of my heroine, Madame de Stael, Miss Nisbitt.” Her voice was beginning to slur.
    I had rather wondered that Mrs. Speers did not resent my rising star at The Ladies’ Journal, and I now had my answer. I also had an idea what price to demand for my next essay. It seemed shockingly high. Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Speers’s eager desire to meet me did not lead her to ask any questions, or even give me much chance to volunteer any information. Her real interests were twofold: herself and Madame de Stael, in that order.
    When she next stopped to take a tipple, I put the pause in her monologue to good use and enquired, “What sort of article do you think Mr. Pepper wants?”
    “Just the sort of thing you wrote before. That will go down very well, my dear. All about how men abuse us and steal our money under the guise of marriage, and leave us to educate ourselves. They take all the good jobs. Why should not Madame de Stael with all her learning and nobility and experiences, be an ambassadress, I should like to know?”
    “Why indeed? But about my writing—to go on writing the same sort of thing time after time ...”
    “It is what he wants. Millie Pilgrim writes on the plight of governesses and house servants. Her article on how the lords of the manor prey on innocent young girls was very effective. Next month she is doing nursemaids. Elinor Clancy, a vicar’s orphan, writes of the situation of ministers’ female children. There is more goes on in a rectory than counting prayerbooks! She knows of a vicar in Northumberland who has never opened a Bible. He has a daughter write all his sermons while he takes the bows and collects the money. That is the sort of thing we expose.”
    I felt quite at a loss. “I have no experience of that sort, I’m afraid.”
    She grabbed my hand and laughed gaily, “Oh, my dear! That is not what you shall write! You are so refained—I noticed it at once when Arthur showed me your essay. All done in lovely copperplate writing, and with such faine grammar. You are to write of life from the real lady’s point of view. You will add a touch of class to the magazine. Such things as forcing daughters to marry for money, and how husbands squander their wives’ blunt on other ladies—that sort of carry-on must be exposed. Surely you know of many such cases outside of your own, and if not, you must use your imagination. No need to mention any names at any rate, and go making enemies in high places. It will be the makings of you—and your friends need never know, for you will remain a question mark. My suggestion, by the by. Do you like it?”
    “I thought it very clever, Mrs Speers. A definite improvement over the well-worn ‘Anonymous Lady.’“
    I saw that I had fallen into shameful company. But beneath all the awful vulgarity and self-seeking of the conversation, there was a kernel of justice. Wrongs were being perpetrated against my sex, and there was nothing immoral in exposing them. Quite the contrary, it ought to be done. Millie Pilgrim had taken up the cudgel on behalf of servants, Elinor Clancy on behalf of vicars’ daughters—why not Emma Nesbitt on behalf of wronged genteel ladies? And of course I had urgent need of the money.
    “And where are you staying, dear?” she enquired.
    “At the Pelican.”
    “Samuel Johnson.” She nodded. “But an inn is only for the nonce. You will not want to pay out such a stiff sum for long. You need rooms.”
    “Yes, I have been looking.”
    “Look no further,” she announced, and smiled benignly. “A flat on my upper story has just been vacated. Four bright, airy rooms, furnished as faine as a star, and supplied with