nour, naming the day and the hour; and Mrs. Pomfret, believing that
a prospective governor should possess some of the perquisites of royalty,
in a rash moment submitted for his approval a list of guests. This
included two distinguished foreigners who were staying at the Leith Inn,
an Englishman and an Austrian, and an elderly lady of very considerable
social importance who was on a visit to Mrs. Pomfret.

Mr. Crewe had graciously sanctioned the list, but took the liberty of
suggesting as an addition to it the name of Miss Victoria Flint,
explaining over the telephone to Mrs. Pomfret that he had scarcely seen
Victoria all summer, and that he wanted particularly to see her. Mrs.
Pomfret declared that she had only left out Victoria because her presence
might be awkward for both of them, but Mr. Crewe waved this aside as a
trivial and feminine objection; so Victoria was invited, and another
young man to balance the table.

Mrs. Pomfret, as may have been surmised, was a woman of taste, and her
villa at Leith, though small, had added considerably to her reputation
for this quality. Patterson Pomfret had been a gentleman with red cheeks
and an income, who incidentally had been satisfied with both. He had
never tried to add to the income, which was large enough to pay the dues
of the clubs the lists of which he thought worthy to include his name;
large enough to pay hotel bills in London and Paris and at the baths, and
to free the servants at country houses; large enough to clothe his wife
and himself, and to teach Alice the three essentials of music, French,
and deportment. If that man is notable who has mastered one thing well,
Patterson Pomfret was a notable man: he had mastered the possibilities of
his income, and never in any year had he gone beyond it by so much as a
sole d vin blanc or a pair of red silk stockings. When he died, he left a
worthy financial successor in his wife.

Mrs. Pomfret, knowing the income, after an exhaustive search decided upon
Leith as the place to build her villa. It must be credited to her
foresight that, when she built, she saw the future possibilities of the
place. The proper people had started it. And it must be credited to her
genius that she added to these possibilities of Leith by bringing to it
such families as she thought worthy to live in the neighbourhood
--families which incidentally increased the value of the land. Her villa
had a decided French look, and was so amazingly trim and