hile the happily unconscious Mrs. Stimpson had settled down in her
chair again with the conviction that she had made a distinctly
favourable impression. She allowed her eyes to wander complacently round
the room, which, with its big bay window looking on the semi-circular
gravel sweep, and its glazed door by the fireplace leading through a
small conservatory, gay with begonias, asters, and petunias to the
garden beyond, was not merely large, by Gablehurst standards, but
undeniably pleasant. She regarded its various features--the white
chimney-piece and over-mantel with Adam decorations in _Cartonpierre_,
the silk fire-screen printed with Japanese photographs, the
cottage-grand, on which stood a tall trumpet vase filled with branches
of imitation peach blossom, the _etageres_ ("Louis Quinze style")
containing china which could not be told from genuine Dresden at a
distance, the gaily patterned chintz on the couches and chairs, the
water-colour sketches of Venice, and coloured terra-cotta plaques
embossed on high relief with views of the Forum and St. Peter's at Rome
on the walls, and numerous "nick-nacks"--an alabaster model of the
Leaning Tower of Pisa, a wood carving of the Lion of Lucerne, and groups
of bears from Berne--all of which were not only souvenirs of her
wedding-journey, but witnesses to Continental travel and general
culture.

She could see nothing that was not in the most correct taste, as Lady
Harriet must have observed for herself, together with the hammered
copper gong, the oak chest, and the china bowl for cards in the hall.
Strange that Saunders should have been the humble means of bringing
about so unexpected a meeting, but Providence chose its own instruments,
and now the seed was sown, Mrs. Stimpson felt she could rely on herself
for the harvest.

And so she took up the latest number of _The Upper Circle_, and read, to
the accompaniment of alternate duologues and soliloquies by thrushes and
blackbirds in the garden, until gradually she drifted into a blissful
dream of being at a garden-party at Lady Harriet's and entreated, not
merely by her hostess, but Royalty itself, to accept the _role_ of
Queen at the County Pageant!

She was in the act of doing this gracefully, when the vision was
abruptly ended by the entrance of her elder daughter. Edna was by no
means bad-looking, in spite of her light eyelashes and eyebrows, and the
fact that the _pince-nez_ she wore compressed her small nose in an
un