rom the description given, seemed to
be neither a friend nor a lady, had mentioned that Miss Radford was
beginning to look her full age; and remarks of this kind might be
contradicted but could not be ignored.

"Don't you ever get anxious about your personal appearance?" she
inquired.

"Not specially."

"I suppose," agreed Miss Radford, "that being properly engaged does
make you a bit less anxious."

Clarence came with Miss Loriner, and the young hostess flushed at the
young woman's first words. Henry sent his best regards. Henry, it
appeared, no longer spent week-ends at Ewelme--this because of some
want of agreement with Lady Douglass; and he was now busy in connection
with a sanatorium at Walton-on-Naze, which demanded frequent journeys
from Liverpool Street. Gertie, in taking Miss Loriner to get rid of
hat and dust-cloak in the adjoining room, felt it good to find herself
remembered. Miss Loriner wanted a small fan, and searching the
hand-bag which she had brought, first looked puzzled, and then became
enlightened.

"I've brought Lady Douglass's bag by mistake," she cried,
self-reproachfully. "Here are her initials in the corner--'M. D.'; not
'M. L.'" Miss Loriner gave an ejaculation.

"What is it you've found there?"

"This," announced the other deliberately, "is the missing key of the
billiard-room at Morden Place!"

The two girls looked at each other, and Gertie nodded.

"I've been blaming her brother all along for that trick."

"My dear girl," demanded Miss Loriner, "aren't you fearfully excited
and indignant about it?"

"Doesn't seem to matter much now. But," smiling, "she is a character,
isn't she? I pity you if she often does things like that."

"I shall be uncommonly glad," admitted the other, "when Clarence earns
three hundred a year. Do you know that if you had stayed on at Morden
Place, this key would most likely have been found in your portmanteau."

Frederick Bulpert, arriving with his friends, asserted his position by
attempting to kiss Gertie; she drew back, and Bulpert said manfully
that if she could do without it he could also afford to dispense with
the ceremony. He introduced his companions as two of the very best and
brightest, and they intimated, by a modest shrug of the shoulders, that
this might be taken as a correct description. The sisters of
Westbourne Grove came bearing a highly-ornamental cardboard case with a
decoration of angels, and containing a pair of glo