aintance. She found it always a pleasant
manner in which to open a conversation at dinner, dance, or soiree:
"Oh! do you happen to know my cousin, Lady Nassington?" She never
sufficiently realised it as bad form, and therefore in her own circle
was known among the women, who jeered at her behind her back, as "The
Cousin of Lady Nassington." She was daintily dressed, and evidently
just come in from visiting, for she still had her hat on when she
entered.

"Ah!" she cried, with her usual buoyant air. "You truant! We've all
been wondering what had become of you. Busy, of course! Always the
same excuse! Find something fresh. You used it a fortnight ago to
refuse my invitation to take pot-luck with us."

I laughed at her unconventional greeting, replying, "If I say
something fresh it must be a lie. You know, Mrs. Henniker, how hard
I'm kept at it, with hospital work and private practice."

"That's all very well," she said, with a slight pout of her
well-shaped mouth--for she was really a pretty woman, even though full
of airs and caprices. "But it doesn't excuse you for keeping away from
us altogether."

"I don't keep away altogether," I protested. "I've called now."

She pulled a wry face, in order to emphasise her dissatisfaction at my
explanation, and said:

"And I suppose you are prepared to receive castigation? Ethelwynn has
begun to complain because people are saying that your engagement is
broken off."

"Who says so?" I inquired rather angrily, for I hated all the
tittle-tattle of that little circle of gossips who dawdle over the
tea-cups of Redcliffe Square and its neighbourhood. I had attended a
good many of them professionally at various times, and was well
acquainted with all their ways and all their exaggerations. The
gossiping circle in flat-land about Earl's Court was bad enough, but
the Redcliffe Square set, being slightly higher in the social scale,
was infinitely worse.

"Oh! all the ill-natured people are commenting upon your apparent
coolness. Once, not long ago, you used to be seen everywhere with
Ethelwynn, and now no one ever sees you. People form a natural
conclusion, of course," said the fair-haired, fussy little woman,
whose married state gave her the right to censure me on my neglect.

"Ethelwynn is, of course, still with you?" I asked, in anger that
outsiders should seek to interfere in my private affairs.

"She still makes our house her home, not caring to go back to the
dulness of N