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had lots of servants in those days) and looked into the drawing-room. There, as he expected, he found Aunt Letty. She was busily mending a mattress. It lay on the floor near the window and she was kneeling on it.
    “Ah, Letitia, my dear,” said Uncle Andrew, “I—ah—have to go out. Just lend me five pounds or so, there’s a good gel.” (“Gel” was the way he pronounced girl.)
    “No, Andrew, dear,” said Aunt Letty in herfirm, quiet voice, without looking up from her work. “I’ve told you times without number that I will not lend you money.”

    “Now pray don’t be troublesome, my dear gel,” said Uncle Andrew. “It’s most important. You will put me in a deucedly awkward position if you don’t.”
    “Andrew,” said Aunt Letty, looking him straight in the face, “I wonder you are not ashamed to ask me for money.”
    There was a long, dull story of a grown-up kind behind these words. All you need to knowabout it is that Uncle Andrew, what with “managing dear Letty’s business matters for her,” and never doing any work, and running up large bills for brandy and cigars (which Aunt Letty had paid again and again) had made her a good deal poorer than she had been thirty years ago.
    “My dear gel,” said Uncle Andrew, “you don’t understand. I shall have some quite unexpected expenses today. I have to do a little entertaining. Come now, don’t be tiresome.”
    “And who, pray, are you going to entertain, Andrew?” asked Aunt Letty.
    “A—a most distinguished visitor has just arrived.”
    “Distinguished fiddlestick!” said Aunt Letty. “There hasn’t been a ring at the bell for the last hour.”
    At that moment the door was suddenly flung open. Aunt Letty looked round and saw with amazement that an enormous woman, splendidly dressed, with bare arms and flashing eyes, stood in the doorway. It was the Witch.

Seven

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FRONT DOOR

    “NOW, SLAVE, HOW LONG AM I TO WAIT for my chariot?” thundered the Witch. Uncle Andrew cowered away from her. Now that she was really present, all the silly thoughts he had had while looking at himself in the glass were oozing out of him. But Aunt Letty at once got up from her knees and came over to the center of the room.
    “And who is this young person, Andrew, may I ask?” said Aunt Letty in icy tones.
    “Distinguished foreigner—v-very important p-person,” he stammered.
    “Rubbish!” said Aunt Letty, and then, turning to the Witch, “Get out of my house this moment, you shameless hussy, or I’ll send for the police.” She thought the Witch must be someone out of a circus and she did not approve of bare arms.
    “What woman is this?” said Jadis. “Down on your knees, minion, before I blast you.”
    “No strong language in this house if you please,young woman,” said Aunt Letty.
    Instantly, as it seemed to Uncle Andrew, the Queen towered up to an even greater height. Fire flashed from her eyes: she flung out her arm with the same gesture and the same horrible-sounding words that had lately turned the palace-gates of Charn to dust. But nothing happened except that Aunt Letty, thinking that those horrible words were meant to be ordinary English, said:
    “I thought as much. The woman is drunk. Drunk! She can’t even speak clearly.”
    It must have been a terrible moment for the Witch when she suddenly realized that her power of turning people into dust, which had been quite real in her own world, was not going to work in ours. But she did not lose her nerve even for a second. Without wasting a thought on her disappointment, she lunged forward, caught Aunt Letty round the neck and the knees, raised her high above her head as if she had been no heavier than a doll, and threw her across the room. While Aunt Letty was still hurtling through the air, the housemaid (who was having a beautifully exciting morning) put her head in at the door and said, “If you please, sir, the ’ansom’s come.”
    “Lead on, Slave,” said the