ayed Lord Arleigh to be present as his "best man" on the
occasion.

On the same evening Lady Peters and Miss L'Estrange sat in the
drawing-room at Verdun House, alone. Philippa had been very restless.
She had been walking to and fro; she had opened her piano and closed it;
she had taken up volume after volume and laid it down again, when
suddenly her eyes fell on a book prettily bound in crimson and gold,
which Lady Peters had been reading.

"What book is that?" she asked, suddenly.

"Lord Lytton's 'Lady of Lyons,'" replied Lady Peters.

Philippa raised it, looked through it, and then, with a strange smile
and a deep sigh, laid it down.

"At last," she said--"I have found it at last!"

"Found what, my dear?" asked Lady Peters, looking up.

"Something I have been searching for," replied Philippa, as she quitted
the room, still with the strange smile on her lips.

Chapter XV.

The great event of the year succeeding was the appearance of the Duchess
of Hazlewood. Miss L'Estrange the belle and the heiress, had been very
popular; her Grace of Hazlewood was more popular still. She was queen of
fashionable London. At her mansion all the most exclusive met. She had
resolved upon giving her life to society, upon cultivating it, upon
making herself its mistress and queen. She succeeded. She became
essentially a leader of society. To belong to the Duchess of Hazlewood's
"set" was to be the _creme de la creme_. The beautiful young duchess had
made up her mind upon two things. The first was that she would be a
queen of society; the second, that she would reign over such a circle as
had never been gathered together before. She would have youth, beauty,
wit, genius; she would not trouble about wealth. She would admit no one
who was not famous for some qualification or other--some grace of body
or mind--some talent or great gift. The house should be open to talent
of all kinds, but never open to anything commonplace. She would be the
encourager of genius, the patroness of the fine arts, the friend of all
talent.

It was a splendid career that she marked out for herself, and she was
the one woman in England especially adapted for it The only objection to
it was that while she gave every scope to imagination--while she
provided for all intellectual wants and needs--she made no allowance for
the affections; they never entered into her calculations.

In a few weeks half London was talking about the beautiful Duchess