," Dyce replied, remembering now that it was from Mrs. Woolstan
he had heard her name.

"Why, how's that?" exclaimed the hostess. "You never told me about it,
Mr. Lashmar."

Dyce had much ado to conceal his annoyed embarrassment. He wondered
whether Mrs. Woolstan had made known the fact of his tutorship, which
he did not care to publish, preferring to represent himself as having
always held an independent position. With momentary awkwardness he
explained that Mrs. Toplady's name had but once casually passed Mrs.
Woolstan's Tips in his hearing, and that till now he had forgotten the
circumstance.

"I saw her yesterday," said the lady of the roguish lips. "She's in
trouble about parting with her little boy--just been sent to school."

"Ah--yes."

"Very sweet face, hasn't she? Is the child like her? I never saw
him--perhaps you never did, either?"

Mrs. Toplady had a habit, not of looking steadily at an interlocutor,
but of casting a succession of quick glances, which seemed to the
person thus inspected much more searching than a fixed gaze. Though
vastly relieved by the assurance that Mrs. Woolstan had used discretion
concerning him, Dyce could not become at ease under that restless look:
he felt himself gauged and registered, though with what result was by
no means discernible in Mrs. Toplady's countenance. Those eyes of hers
must have gauged a vast variety of men; her forehead told of experience
and meditation thereon. Of all the women he could remember, she
impressed him as the least manageable according to his method. Compared
with her, Lady Ogram seemed mere ingenuousness and tractability.

"And, pray, _who_ is Mrs. Woolstan?" the hostess was asking, with a
rather dry insistence.

"A charming little woman," replied Mrs. Toplady, sincerity in look and
voice. "I knew her before her marriage, which perhaps was not
quite--but the poor man is dead. A sister of hers married into my
husband's family. She plays beautifully, an exquisite touch."

They were summoned to dinner. At table it was Mrs. Toplady who led the
conversation, but in such a way as to assume no undue prominence,
rather she seemed to be all attention to other talk, and, her smile
notwithstanding, to listen with the most open-minded interest to
whatever was said. Her manner to Lady Ogram was marked with deference,
at times with something like affectionate gentleness; to Miss Bride she
paid the compliment of amiable gravity; and towards Lashmar she