iew below the
lawn. There they began to play tennis. Miss Brooke skimmed and darted
about like a swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats was most
attractive.

"That girl ought not to play tennis in shoes with ridiculous heels,"
remarked Lord Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court."

Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle.

"She wanted to play at this particular moment," she said. "And as she
has only just arrived, it did not occur to her to come out to tea in
tennis-shoes."

"She'll spoil the court all the same," said the marquis. "What clothes!
It's amazing how girls dress now."

"I wish I had such clothes," answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled
again. "She's got beautiful feet."

"She's got Louis Quinze heels," returned his Lordship.

At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought Miss Brooke seemed to intend to
rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When
her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and
terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her
shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and
head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the
silver music of her own lighter merriment rang out a little
tantalisingly.

"I wonder what Cora is saying," said Mrs. Brooke to the group at large.
"She always makes men laugh so."

Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, the merriment sounded so
attractive. She wondered if perhaps to a man who had been so much run
after a girl who took no notice of his presence and amused other men so
much might not assume an agreeable aspect.

But he took more notice of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that
evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was
radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite
little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and
her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely
enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being
silly, but she was not silly at all.

Lady Maria commented upon that fact to Miss Fox-Seton when they met in
her bedroom late that night. Lady Maria liked to talk and be talked to
for half an hour after the day was over, and Emily Fox-Seton's admiring
interest in all she said she found at once stimulating and soothing. Her
Ladyship was an old woman who indulged and inspired herself with an
Epicurean wisdom. Though she would n