t separations from her mother--a longing to get back to the
familiar and the accustomed. She now felt somewhat the same longing
to get back to herself. She had done her part in all that brilliant
pageant like a woman in a dream. She had enjoyed it, for power and
admiration were very dear to her, and she had revelled in their fresh
first-fruits. But she had not been herself for so long, had not for
so long looked herself in the face and searched her own heart, that
she did not know herself much more familiarly than she knew the other
brilliant personages who moved beside her across the crowded stage of
London life.

It was unaccountable even to herself how she rejoiced at the idea of
these few days of quiet and solitude. Nora, her old nurse, was of
course with her still, with a French maid to assist her and perform
the important functions of the toilet of which the elderly woman was
ignorant. This maid Bettina sent off on a holiday, so that she might
have only Nora about her.

The morning after her arrival at Kingdon, Bettina, having breakfasted
in her room, went for a ramble over the house. It seemed solemnly
vast and empty, and she would have lost herself many times had she
not encountered now and then a courtesying house-maid or an
obsequious footman, who answered her inquiries and told her into what
apartments she had strayed.

"Show me the way to the picture-gallery," she said to one of these,
"and then tell the housekeeper to come to me there presently."

She had taken a fancy to this white-haired old woman the night
before, when Lord Hurdly had presented the servants to their new
mistress in the great hall, where they had all been assembled to
receive her on her arrival.

In a few moments she found herself alone in the stately gallery,
going from picture to picture. On one side was a long line of the
ladies of Kingdon Hall, painted by contemporary artists, each
celebrated in his era. At the end of this line her own portrait, done
by a celebrated French painter who had come to London for the
purpose, had recently been put in place.

It was a magnificent thing in its manner as well as in its subject,
and the costume which Lord Hurdly's taste had conceived for her and a
French milliner had carried out was a marvel of rich effects. As she
paused in front of it her lips parted, and she said, whispering to
herself,

"Lady Hurdly--the present Lady Hurdly! And what has become of
Bettina?"

As she asked herself