aid that, as her
first husband had been killed in a row, Lady Tancred had cause to have
tragedy imprinted upon her face.

"Betty, dearest," Emily then said, "please, please don't tell anything
of your exciting story to any one else, will you? Because people are so
unkind."

At this, Lady Betty bounced off again offendedly.

"You are an ungrateful pair," she flashed. "Before I brave meeting Jimmy
Danvers in the passage again, in my dressing-gown, to come and tell you
delicious things, I'll be hanged!"

And it was with difficulty that Emily and Mary mollified her, and got
her to re-seat herself on the bed and have a bit of their
bread-and-butter. She had fled to announce her thrilling news before her
own tea had come.

"I do think men look perfectly horrid with their hair unbrushed in the
morning, don't you, Em?" she said, presently, as she munched, while
Mary poured her out some tea into the emptied sugar-basin and handed it
to her. "Henry's fortunate, because his is curly"--Here Mary
blushed--"and I believe Jimmy Danvers gets his valet to glue his down
before he goes to bed. But you should see what Aunt Muriel has to put up
with, when Uncle Aubrey comes in to talk to her, while I am there. The
front, anyhow, and a lock sticking up in the back! There is one thing I
am determined about. Before I'm married, I shall insist upon knowing how
my husband stands the morning light."

"I thought you said just now Jimmy's was quite decent and glued down,"
Emily retorted slyly.

"Pouff!" said Lady Betty, with superb calm. "I have not made up my mind
at all about Jimmy. He is dying to ask me, I know; but there is Bobby
Harland, too. However, this morning--"

"You've seen Jimmy this morning, Betty!" Mary exclaimed.

"Well, how could I help it, girls?" Lady Betty went on, feeling that she
was now a heroine. "I had to come to you. It was my bounden duty; and
it's miles away, for Aunt Muriel always will have me in the
dressing-room next her, when she takes me to stay out, and Uncle Aubrey
across the passage; and it makes him so cross. But that's not it. I
mean, it is not my fault, if the Duke has only arranged three new
bathrooms down the bachelors' wing, and people are obliged to be waiting
about for their turn, and I had to pass the entrance to that passage,
and it happened to be Jimmy's, and he was just going in, when he saw me
and rushed along, and said 'Good morning,' not a bit put out! I thought
it would look silly to r