and
try ranching.'

Lady Charlotte burst into an angry laugh. He stood opposite to her, with
his orchid in his buttonhole, himself the fine flower of civilisation.
Ranching, indeed! However, he had done so many odd things in his life,
that, as she knew, it was never quite safe to decline to take him
seriously, and he looked at her now so defiantly, his clear greenish
eyes so wide open and alert, that her will began to waver under the
pressure of his.

'What do you want me to do, sir?'

His glance relaxed at once, and he laughingly explained to her that what
he asked of her was to keep the prey in sight.

'I can do nothing for myself at present,' he said; 'I get on her nerves.
She was in love with that black-haired, _enfant du siecle_,--or rather,
she prefers to assume that she was--and I haven't given her time to
forget him. A serious blunder, and I deserve to suffer for it. Very
well, then, I retire, and I ask you and Helen to keep watch. Don't let
her go. Make yourselves nice to her; and, in fact, spoil me a little now
I am on the high road to forty, as you used to spoil me at fourteen.'

Mr. Flaxman sat down by his aunt and kissed her hand, after which Lady
Charlotte was as wax before him. 'Thank heaven,' she reflected, 'in ten
days the Duke and all of them go out of town.' Retribution, therefore,
for wrong-doing would be tardy, if wrong-doing there must be. She could
but ruefully reflect that after all the girl was beautiful and gifted;
moreover, if Hugh would force her to befriend him in this criminality,
there might be a certain joy in thereby vindicating those Liberal
principles of hers, in which a scornful family had always refused to
believe. So, being driven into it, she would fain have done it boldly
and with a dash. But she could not rid her mind of the Duke, and her
performance all through, as a matter of fact, was blundering.

However, she was for the time very gracious to Rose, being in truth
really fond of her; and Rose, however high she might hold her little
head, could find no excuse for quarrelling either with her or Lady
Helen.

Towards the middle of June there was a grand ball given by Lady
Fauntleroy at Fauntleroy House, to which the two Miss Leyburns, by Lady
Helen's machinations, were invited. It was to be one of the events of
the season, and when the cards arrived 'to have the honour of meeting
their Royal Highnesses,' etc. etc., Mrs. Leyburn, good soul, gazed at
them with eyes which gr