t you
have the boy if I could manage to spare him."

"Do you think he would make a devoted husband?" asks Vera, with a lazy
smile.

"My dear child, don't be a fool. What is the use of devotion in a
husband? All one wants is a good fellow, who will let one alone. After
all, the boy might not answer. I am afraid, Vera," turning round suddenly
upon her, "I am very much afraid that boy is in love with you; it's
horrid of you to take him from me, because he is so useful, and I really
can't well do without him. I am going to pay him out to-night though: he
is to sit opposite you at dinner; he will only be able to gaze at you."

"That is hard upon us both."

"Pooh! don't waste your time upon him. I shall do better than that for
you; he is an eldest son, it is true, but Sir Charles looks as young as
his son, and is quite as likely to live as long. It is only married women
who can afford the luxury of ineligibles. Go and dress, child."

Half-an-hour later Mrs. Hazeldine and Miss Nevill are to be found upon
two chairs on the broad and shady side of the Row, where a small crowd of
men is already gathered around them.

Vera, coming up a stranger, and self-invited to the house of her old
acquaintance a few weeks ago, had already created a sensation in London.
Her rare beauty, the strange charm of her quiet, listless manner, the
shade of melancholy which had of late imperceptibly crept over her,
aroused a keen admiration and interest in her, even in that city, which
more than all others is satiated with its manifold types of beautiful
women.

There was a rush to get introduced to her; a _furore_ to see her. As she
went through a crowd people whispered her name and made way for her to
pass, staring at her after a fashion which is totally modern and
detestably ill-bred; and yet which, sad token of the _decadence_ of
things in these later days, is not beneath the dignity or the manners
of persons whose breeding is supposed to be beyond dispute.

Already the "new beauty" had been favourably contrasted with the
well-known reigning favourites; and it was the loudly expressed opinion
of more than one-half of the _jeunesse doree_ of the day that not one of
the others could "hold a candle to her, by Jove!"

Mrs. Hazeldine was delighted. It was she to whom belonged the honour of
bringing this new star into notice; the credit of launching her upon
London society was her own. She found herself courted and flattered and
made up to in a