the flashing of quizzing-glasses
from the men. And everywhere was there a suppressed laugh, a stifled
exclamation of surprise at her appearance in public--yet not so stifled
but that it reached her, as it was intended that it should.

In the shadow of a great elm, around which there was a seat, a little
group had gathered, of which the centre was the sometime toast of the
town and queen of many Wells, the Lady Mary Deller, still beautiful and
still unwed--as is so often the way of reigning toasts--but already
past her pristine freshness, already leaning upon the support of art to
maintain the endowments she had had from nature. She was accounted witty
by the witless, and by some others.

Of the group that paid its court to her and her companions--two giggling
cousins in their first season were Mr. Caryll and his friends, Sir Harry
Collis and Mr. Edward Stapleton, the former of whom--he was the lady's
brother-in-law--had just presented him. Mr. Caryll was dressed with even
more than his ordinary magnificence. He was in dove-colored cloth, his
coat very richly laced with gold, his waistcoat--of white brocade
with jeweled buttons, the flower-pattern outlined in finest gold
thread--descended midway to his knees, whilst the ruffles at his wrists
and the Steinkirk at his throat were of the finest point. He cut a
figure of supremest elegance, as he stood there, his chestnut head
slightly bowed in deference as my Lady Mary spoke, his hat tucked under
his arm, his right hand outstretched beside him to rest upon the gold
head of his clouded-amber cane.

To the general he was a stranger still in town, and of the sort that
draws the eye and provokes inquiry. Lady Mary, the only goal of whose
shallow existence was the attention of the sterner sex, who loved to
break hearts as a child breaks toys, for the fun of seeing how they look
when broken--and who, because of that, had succeeded in breaking far
fewer than she fondly imagined--looked up into his face with the "most
perditiously alluring" eyes in England--so Mr. Craske, the poet, who
stood at her elbow now, had described them in the dedicatory sonnet of
his last book of poems. (Wherefore, in parenthesis be it observed, she
had rewarded him with twenty guineas, as he had calculated that she
would.)

There was a sudden stir in the group. Mr. Craske had caught sight of
Lady Ostermore and Mistress Winthrop, and he fell to giggling, a flimsy
handkerchief to his painted lips. "Oh,