ther way. He couldn't help it someway. He
tried to, but he used to say that profanity came as natural to him as
breathing. It used to mortify his family terribly. Fortunately, none of
them took after him in that respect. But he's dead--and one shouldn't
speak ill of the dead. I must go and get Mattie Penhallow to do my hair.
I would burst these sleeves clean out if I tried to do it myself and I
don't want to dress over again. You won't be likely to talk to Romney
about Lucinda again, my dear Cecilia?"

"Fifteen years!" murmured Mrs. George helplessly to the dahlias.
"Engaged for fifteen years and never speaking to each other! Dear heart
and soul, think of it! Oh, these Penhallows!"

Meanwhile, Lucinda, serenely unconscious that her love story was being
mouthed over by Mrs. Frederick in the dahlia garden, was dressing for
the wedding. Lucinda still enjoyed dressing for a festivity, since the
mirror still dealt gently with her. Moreover, she had a new dress.
Now, a new dress--and especially one as nice as this--was a rarity with
Lucinda, who belonged to a branch of the Penhallows noted for being
chronically hard up. Indeed, Lucinda and her widowed mother were
positively poor, and hence a new dress was an event in Lucinda's
existence. An uncle had given her this one--a beautiful, perishable
thing, such as Lucinda would never have dared to choose for herself, but
in which she revelled with feminine delight.

It was of pale green voile--a colour which brought out admirably the
ruddy gloss of her hair and the clear brilliance of her skin. When she
had finished dressing she looked at herself in the mirror with frank
delight. Lucinda was not vain, but she was quite well aware of the fact
of her beauty and took an impersonal pleasure in it, as if she were
looking at some finely painted picture by a master hand.

The form and face reflected in the glass satisfied her. The puffs and
draperies of the green voile displayed to perfection the full, but not
over-full, curves of her fine figure. Lucinda lifted her arm and touched
a red rose to her lips with the hand upon which shone the frosty glitter
of Romney's diamond, looking at the graceful slope of her shoulder and
the splendid line of chin and throat with critical approval.

She noted, too, how well the gown became her eyes, bringing out all the
deeper colour in them. Lucinda had magnificent eyes. Once Romney had
written a sonnet to them in which he compared their colour to r