my motor,"
said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be
amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the
girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing
serious--half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your
sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed.
We can't do the record business now--not this time,--so it doesn't
matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."

"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield.
"I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and
perhaps"--here he smiled complacently--"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss
Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"

"Ya-as--ya-as!--oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! _You_
will, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got
nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait
in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"

Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.

"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the
thing is done!"

Wrotham twirled his moustache again.

"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on.
"I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,--makes 'em famous in a
day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like
are turned into frights--positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily
done, you know!--touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there
you are!"

The girl Grace lifted her eyes,--very pretty sparkling eyes they
were,--and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.

"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.

"It is!--give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the
shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases
all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've made
many a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire
beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"

"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite
enough already. I never use tongs!"

Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by
the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.

"That's a one--er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are,
Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,--they've
go