ever seemed to know. When will
you come and see me--or shall I come to you? I can't stay now, for we
were just going; my daughter, Ermyntrude Welwyn, has to take some one to
a ball. How _strange_"--she broke off--"how very strange that you and he
should have met to-night! He goes off to Italy to-morrow, you know, with
Lord Maxwell."

"Yes, I had heard," said Marcella, more steadily. "Will you come to tea
with me next week?--Oh, I will write.--And we must go too--where _can_
my friend be?"

She looked round in dismay, and up and down the terrace for Edith.

"I will take you back to the Lanes, anyway," said Lady Winterbourne;
"or shall we look after you?"

"No! no! Take me back to the Lanes."

"Mamma, are you coming?" said a voice like a softened version of Lady
Winterbourne's. Then something small and thin ran forward, and a girl's
voice said piteously:

"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne, my frock and my hair take so long to do! _I_
shall be cross with my maid, and look like a fiend. Ermyntrude will be
sorry she ever knew me. _Do_ come!"

"Don't cry, Betty. I certainly shan't take you if you do!" said Lady
Ermyntrude, laughing. "Mamma, is this Miss Boyce--_your_ Miss Boyce?"

She and Marcella shook hands, and they talked a little, Lady Ermyntrude
under cover of the darkness looking hard and curiously at the tall
stranger whom, as it happened, she had never seen before. Marcella had
little notion of what she was saying. She was far more conscious of the
girlish form hanging on Lady Winterbourne's arm than she was of her own
words, of "Betty's" beautiful soft eyes--also shyly and gravely fixed
upon herself--under that marvellous cloud of fair hair; the long,
pointed chin; the whimsical little face.

"Well, none of _you_ are any good!" said Betty at last, in a tragic
voice. "I shall have to walk home my own poor little self, and 'ask a
p'leeceman.' Mr. Raeburn!"

He disengaged himself from a group behind and came--with no alacrity.
Betty ran up to him.

"Mr. Raeburn! Ermyntrude and Lady Winterbourne are going to sleep here,
if you don't mind making arrangements. But _I_ want a hansom."

At that very moment Marcella caught sight of Edith strolling along
towards her with a couple of members, and chatting as though the world
had never rolled more evenly.

"Oh! there she is--there is my friend!" cried Marcella to Lady
Winterbourne. "Good-night--good-night!"

She was hurrying off when she saw Aldous Raeburn was standin