My brother told us you were wonderfully
clever," said Lady Pimlico.

"He should have said my sister," Bessie answered--"when she says such
things as that."

"Shall you be long at Branches?" the duchess asked, abruptly, of the
young girl.

"Lord Lambeth has asked us for three days," said Bessie.

"I shall go," the duchess declared, "and my daughter, too."

"That will be charming!" Bessie rejoined.

"Delightful!" murmured Mrs. Westgate.

"I shall expect to see a great deal of you," the duchess continued.
"When I go to Branches I monopolize my son's guests."

"They must be most happy," said Mrs. Westgate very graciously.

"I want immensely to see it--to see the castle," said Bessie to the
duchess. "I have never seen one--in England, at least; and you know we
have none in America."

"Ah, you are fond of castles?" inquired her Grace.

"Immensely!" replied the young girl. "It has been the dream of my life
to live in one."

The duchess looked at her a moment, as if she hardly knew how to take
this assurance, which, from her Grace's point of view, was either very
artless or very audacious. "Well," she said, rising, "I will show
you Branches myself." And upon this the two great ladies took their
departure.

"What did they mean by it?" asked Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone.

"They meant to be polite," said Bessie, "because we are going to meet
them."

"It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied almost grimly.
"They meant to overawe us by their fine manners and their grandeur, and
to make you LACHER PRISE."

"LACHER PRISE? What strange things you say!" murmured Bessie Alden.

"They meant to snub us, so that we shouldn't dare to go to Branches,"
Mrs. Westgate continued.

"On the contrary," said Bessie, "the duchess offered to show me the
place herself."

"Yes, you may depend upon it she won't let you out of her sight. She
will show you the place from morning till night."

"You have a theory for everything," said Bessie.

"And you apparently have none for anything."

"I saw no attempt to 'overawe' us," said the young girl. "Their manners
were not fine."

"They were not even good!" Mrs. Westgate declared.

Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she observed that she
had a very good theory. "They came to look at me," she said, as if this
had been a very ingenious hypothesis. Mrs. Westgate did it justice;
she greeted it with a smile and pronounced it most brilliant, while, in
realit