hat type which in hotel society and country towns is
always termed "queenly." She "kept the men at a distance." She "never
allowed them to take liberties," etc., etc. She held her chin up and her
elbows out, and was considered by the section of Middleshire society in
which she shone to be very distinguished. Mrs. Pratt was often told that
her daughter looked like a duchess; and this facsimile of the
aristocracy, or rather of the most distressing traits of its latest
recruits, had a manner of lolling with crossed legs in the parental
carriage and pair which was greatly admired. "Looks as if she was born
to it all," Mr. Pratt would say to his wife.

Mrs. Gresley was just beginning to fear her other guests were not coming
when two tall figures were seen walking across the lawn, with Hester
between them.

Mr. Gresley sallied forth to meet them, and blasts of surprised welcome
were borne into the drawing-room by the summer air.

"But it was locked. I locked it myself." Inaudible reply.

"Padlocked. Only opens to the word Moon. Key on my own watch-chain."

Inaudible reply.

"Hinges! ha! ha! ha! Very good, Dick. Likely story that. I see you're
the same as ever. Travellers' tales. But we are not so easily taken in,
are we, Hester?"

Mrs. Gresley certainly had the gift of prophecy as far as the Pratts
were concerned. Mrs. Pratt duly took the expected "fancy" to Rachel, and
pressed her to stay at "The Towers" while she was in the neighborhood,
and make further acquaintance with her "young ladies."

"Ada is very pernickety," she said, smiling towards that individual
conversing with Dick. "She won't make friends with everybody, and she
gives it me" (with maternal pride) "when I ask people to stay whom she
does not take to. She says there's a very poor lot round here, and most
of the young ladies so ill-bred and empty she does not care to make
friends with them. I don't know where she gets all her knowledge from.
I'm sure it's not from her mother. Ada, now you come and talk a little
to Miss West."

Ada rose with the air of one who confers a favor, and Rachel made room
for her on the sofa, while Mrs. Pratt squeezed herself behind the
tea-table with Mrs. Gresley.

The conversation turned on bicycling.

"I bike now and then in the country," said Ada, "but I have not done
much lately. We have only just come down from town, and, _of course_, I
never bike in London."

Rachel had just said that she did.

"Perhaps you are n