o doubt."

Mrs. Miller retired, and the old lady was left undisturbed to finish
her toilette, during which it may fairly be assumed that that dignified
personage, Mrs. West, had a hard time of it.

When she issued forth from her room, dressed, like a little fairy
godmother, in point lace and diamonds, the dancing downstairs was in
full swing.

Lady Kynaston paused for a minute at the top of the broad staircase to
look down upon the bright scene below. The hall was full of people. Girls
in many-coloured dresses passed backwards and forwards from the ball-room
to the refreshment-room, laughing and chatting to their partners; elderly
people were congregated about the doorways gossiping and shaking hands
with new-comers, or watching their daughters with pleased or anxious
faces, according to the circumstances of their lot. Everybody was talking
at once. There came up a pleasant confusion of sound--happy voices
mingling with the measured strains of the dance-music. In a sheltered
corner behind the staircase, Beatrice and Herbert Pryme had settled
themselves down comfortably for a chat. Lady Kynaston saw them.

"Caroline is a fool!" she muttered to herself. "All the balls in the
world won't get that girl married as she wishes. She has set her heart
upon that briefless barrister. I saw it as plain as daylight last season.
As to entertaining all this _cohue_ of aborigines, Caroline might spare
her trouble and her money, as far as the girl is concerned."

And then, coming slowly down the staircase, Lady Kynaston saw something
which restored her to good temper at once.

The something was her younger son. She had caught sight of him through an
open doorway in the conservatory. His back was turned to her, and he was
bending over a lady who was sitting down, and whose face was concealed
behind him.

Lady Kynaston stood still with that sudden _serrement de coeur_ which
comes to us all when we see the creature we love best on earth. He did
not see her, and she could not see his face, because it was turned away
from her; but she knew, by his very attitude, the way he bent down over
his companion, by the eager manner in which he was talking to her, and by
the way in which he was evidently entirely engrossed and absorbed in what
he was saying--that he was enjoying himself, and that he was happy.

The mother's heart all went out towards him; the mother's eyes moistened
as she looked.

The couple in the conservatory were alone. A