lves! And even that mysterious word
"adventuress," which has an ugly sound, but of which no one exactly knows
the precise meaning, began to be bruited about.

"There was an unpleasant story about her, somebody told me once," said
one prettily-dressed nonentity to another, as they wandered slowly up and
down the velvet lawns at Ranelagh. "She was mixed up in some way with the
Kynaston family. Sir John was to have married her, and then something
dreadful came out, and he threw her over."

"Oh, I thought she jilted him."

"I daresay it was one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas
or other. I believe her mother was--hum, hum--you understand--she
couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been
thankful to get out of it."

"It looks very bad, her not marrying any one, with all the fuss there has
been made over her."

"Yes; even Cissy Hazeldine told me, in confidence, yesterday, she could
not try her again next season. It wouldn't do, you know; it would look
too much as if she had some object of her own in getting her married.
Cissy must find something else for another year. Of course, with a
husband, she could sail her own course and make her own way; but a girl
can't go on attracting attention with impunity--she gets herself talked
about--it is only we married women can do as we like."

"Exactly. Do you suppose _that_ will come to anything?" casting a glance
towards the further end of the lawn, where Vera Nevill sat in a low
basket-chair, under the shadow of a spreading tulip-tree, whilst a slight
boyish figure, stretched at her feet, alternately chewed blades of grass
and looked up worshippingly into her face.

"_That!_" following the direction of her companion's eyes. "Oh dear, no!
Denis Wilde is too wideawake to be caught, though he is such a boy! They
say she is crazy to get him; everybody else has slipped through her
fingers, you see, and he would be better than nothing. Now we are in the
last week in July, I daresay she is getting desperate; but young Wilde
knows pretty well what he is about, I expect!"

"He seems to admire her."

"Oh, yes, I daresay; those large kind of women do get admired; men look
upon them as fine animals. _I_ should not care to be admired in that way,
would you?"

"No, indeed! it is disgusting," replied the other, who was fain to
conceal the bony corners of her angular figure with a multiplicity of
lace ruchings and puffings.

"As to Miss Nevil