under her chin, the ruffles at her wrist, the black
brocade gown, which never altered in its fashion and which she herself
cut out, year after year, for her maid to make,--the chatelaine of old
Normandy silver, given her by her brother years before, which hung at
her waist.

Opposite her sat a very different person, yet of a type no less
profitable to this mixed life of ours. Mrs. Mulholland was the widow of
a former scientific professor, of great fame in Oxford for his wit and
Liberalism. Whenever there was a contest on between science and
clericalism in the good old fighting days, Mulholland's ample figure
might have been seen swaying along the road from the Parks to
Convocation, his short-sighted eyes blinking at every one he passed, his
fair hair and beard streaming in the wind, a flag of battle to his own
side, and an omen of defeat to the enemy. His _mots_ still circulated,
and something of his gift for them had remained with the formidable
woman who now represented him. At a time when short dresses for women
were coming in universally, she always wore hers long and ample, though
they were looped up by various economical and thrifty devices; on the
top of the dress--which might have covered a crinoline, but didn't--a
shawl, long after every one else had ceased to wear shawls; and above
the shawl a hat, of the large mushroom type and indecipherable age. And
in the midst of this antique and generally untidy gear, the youngest and
liveliest face imaginable, under snow-white hair: black eyes full of
Irish fun, a pugnacious and humorous mouth, and the general look of one
so steeped in the rich, earthy stuff of life that she might have stepped
out of a novel of Fielding's or a page of "Lavengro."

When Constance entered, Mrs. Mulholland turned round suddenly to look at
her. It was a glance full of good will, but penetrating also, and
critical. It was as though the person from whom it came had more than a
mere stranger's interest in the tall young lady in white, now advancing
towards Miss Wenlock.

But she gave no immediate sign of it. She and Miss Wenlock had been
discussing an Oxford acquaintance, the newly-married wife of one of the
high officials of the University. Miss Wenlock, always amiable, had
discreetly pronounced her "charming."

"Oh, so dreadfully charming!" said Mrs. Mulholland with a shrug, "and so
sentimental that she hardens every heart. Mine becomes stone when I talk
to her. She cried when I went to