As a matter of fact Laura died on Monday.

"So dreadfully upsetting," Amanda complained to her uncle-in-law, Sir Lulworth Quayne. "I've asked very a lot of people down for golf and fishing, and the rhododendrons are just looking their best."

"Laura always was inconsiderate," exclaimed Sir Lulworth; "she was born during Goodwood fortnight, with an Ambassador staying in the house who hated babies."

"She had the maddest kind of ideas," said Amanda; "do you know if there was any insanity inside her family?"

"Insanity? No, I never heard of any. Her portlyher lives in West Kensington, but I believe he's sane on all other subjects."

"She had an idea that she was going to be reincarnated as an otter," said Amanda.

"0ne meets with those ideas of reincarnation so frequently, even in the West," exclaimed Sir Lulworth, "that one can hardly set them down as being mad. And Laura was such an unaccountable person in this life that I should not like to lay down definite rules as to what she might be doing in an after state."