as well enough to be told to hope; and Lady Kilmarny meant to be
kind, but what she said made me "creep" whenever I thought of the
chauffeur.

She advised me not to take my meals with the maids and valets at the
Majestic Palace, because a change, so sudden and Cinderella-like, after
lunching in the restaurant, would cause disagreeable talk in the hotel.
As my living in future would be at the charge of the Turnours, I might
afford myself a few indulgences to begin with, she argued; and deciding
that she was right, I made up my mind to have my remaining meals served
in my own room.

I hastily stripped a black frock of its trimming, dressed my hair more
simply even than usual, parted down the middle, and altogether strove to
achieve the air of a _femme de chambre_ born, not made. But I'm bound to
chronicle the fact for my own future reference (when some day I shall
laugh at this adventure) that the effect, though restful to the eye,
suggested the stage _femme de chambre_ rather than the sober reality one
sees in every-day life. However, I was conscious of having done my best,
a state of mind which always produces a cool, strawberries-and-cream
feeling in the soul; and thus supported I tripped (yes, I _did_ trip!)
downstairs to adorn Lady Turnour for dinner.

The door was open between her bedroom and the sitting-room. Waiting in
the former I could hear voices in the latter. Lady Turnour and her
husband were talking about the arrival of the stepson whose name, I soon
gleaned from their conversation, is Herbert. Naturally, it _would_ be.
People like that are always named Herbert, and are familiarly known to
those whom they may concern as "Bertie."

Presently, her ladyship came into the bedroom, and said, as a queen
might say to her tirewoman, "Put me into my dressing-gown." If there
were a feminine word for "sirrah," I think she would have liked to call
me it.

My eye, roving distractedly, pounced upon a gold-embroidered, purple
silk kimono, perhaps more appropriate to Pooh-Bah than to a stout
English lady of the lower middle class. I released it from its hook on
the door, and would that her ladyship had been as easy to release from
her bodice!

She had not one hook, but many; and they were all so incredibly tight
that, to put her into the dressing-gown as ordered, I feared it would be
necessary to melt and pour her out of the gown she had on.

While I wrestled, silent and red faced, with a bodice as snug as the
head