Chinese lantern, swung high
up above, shed down a soft radiance upon them. Tall camellia bushes,
covered with waxen blossoms and cool shiny leaves, were behind them;
banks of long-fronded, feathery ferns framed them in like a picture.
Maurice's handsome figure stood up tall and strong amongst the greenery;
the dress of the woman he was with lay in soft diaphanous folds upon the
ground beyond him. One white arm rested on her lap, one tiny foot peeped
out from below the laces of her skirt. But Lady Kynaston could not see
her face.

"I wonder who she is," she said to herself. "It is not Helen. She has
peacock's feathers on her dress--bad luck, I believe! Dear boy, he looks
thoroughly happy. I will not disturb him now."

And she passed on through the hall into the large drawing-room, where the
dancing was going on.

The first person she caught sight of there was her eldest son. He was
dancing a quadrille, and his partner was a short young lady in a
strawberry-coloured tulle dress, covered with trails of spinach-green
fern leaves. This young person had a round, chubby face, with bright
apple-hued cheeks, a dark, bullet-shaped head, and round, bead-like eyes
that glanced about her rapidly like those of a frightened dickey-bird.
Her dress was cut very low, and the charms she exhibited were not
captivating. Her arms were very red, and her shoulders were mottled: the
latter is considered to be a healthy sign in a baby, but is hardly a
beautiful characteristic in a grown woman.

"_That_ is my daughter-in-law," said Lady Kynaston to herself, and she
almost groaned aloud. "She is _worse_ even than I thought! Countrified
and common to the last degree; there will be no licking that face or that
figure into shape--they are hopeless! Elise and Worth combined could do
nothing with her! John must be mad. No wonder she is good, poor thing,"
added the naughty little old lady, cynically. "A woman with _that_
appearance can never be tempted to be anything else!"

The quadrille came to an end, and Sir John, after depositing his partner
at the further side of the room, came up to his mother.

"My dear mother, how are you? I am so sorry about your journey; you must
be dead beat. What a fool Bates was to make such a mistake." He was
looking about the room as he spoke. "I must introduce you to Vera."

"Yes, introduce me to her at once," said his mother, in a resigned and
depressed tone of voice. She would like to have added, "And pray get