splendid, just as handsome and full of life as ever, so it does not
tell upon his constitution, that is one mercy! Not like poor Ernest
Bretherton, who, if you remember, was quite broken up by her last
year. And I have one good piece of news for you, dear Aunt Milly. I
do not believe he is so frantically wrapped up in this Esclarmonde
de Chartres woman after all--in spite of that diamond chain at
Monte Carlo. For to-night he took us to dine at
Armenonville--although Jack particularly wanted to go to the
Madrid--and when we got there we saw at once why! There was a most
beautiful woman dining there with a party, and Hector never took
his eyes off her the whole of dinner, Jack says--I had my back that
way--and he got rid of us as soon as he could and went and joined
them. Very young she looked, but I suppose married, from her pearls
and clothes--American probably, as she was perhaps too well dressed
for one of us; but quite a lady and awfully pretty. Hector was so
snappish about it, and would not tell her name, that it makes me
sure he is very much in love with her, and Jack thinks so too. So,
dear Aunt Milly, you need have no more anxieties about him, as she
can't have been married long, she looks so young, and so must be
quite safe. Jack says Hector is thoroughly able to take care of
himself, anyway, but I know how all these things worry you. If I
can find out her name before I go I will, though perhaps you think
it is out of the frying-pan into the fire, as it makes him no more
in the mood to marry Morella Winmarleigh than before. Unless, of
course, this new one is unkind to him. We shall be home on
Saturday, dear Aunt Milly, and I will come round to lunch on Sunday
and give you all my news.

"Your affectionate niece,
"MONICA ELLERWOOD."

Which epistle jarred upon Hector's mother when she read it over coffee
at her solitary dinner on the following night.

"Poor dear Monica!" she said to herself. "I wonder where she got this
strain from--her father's family, I suppose--I wish she would not be
so--bald."

Then she sat down and wrote to her son--she was not even going to the
opera that night. And if she had looked up in the tall mirror opposite,
she would have seen a beautiful, stately lady with a puckered, plaintive
frown on her face.

If a woman absolutely w