ttracted some little notice as she waited among the crowd of
_debutantes;_ but, on its being ascertained that she was nobody in
particular, curiosity languished and died.

Mrs. Winstanley wanted to exhibit her court-dress at the opera that
evening, but her husband protested against this display as bad style.
Vixen was only too glad to throw off her finery, the tulle puffings and
festoonings, and floral wreaths and bouquets, which made movement
difficult and sitting down almost impossible.

Those six weeks in town were chiefly devoted to gaiety. Mrs.
Winstanley's Hampshire friends called on her, and followed up their
calls by invitations to dinner, and at the dinners she generally met
people who were on the eve of giving a garden-party, or a concert, or a
dance, and who begged to be allowed to send her a card for that
entertainment, spoken of modestly as a thing of no account. And then
there was a hurried interchange of calls, and Violet found herself
meandering about an unknown croquet-lawn, amongst unknown nobodies,
under a burning sun, looking at other girls, dressed like herself in
dresses a la Theodore, with the last thing in sleeves, and the last cut
in trains, all pretending to be amused by the vapid and languid
observations of the cavalier told off to them, paired like companions
of the chain at Toulon, and as almost as joyous.

Violet Tempest attended no less than eight private concerts during
those six weeks, and heard the same new ballad, and the same latest
gavotte in C minor, at everyone of them. She was taken to pianoforte
recitals in fashionable squares and streets, and heard Bach and
Beethoven till her heart ached with pity for the patient labour of the
performers, knowing how poorly she and the majority of mankind
appreciated their efforts. She went to a few dances that were rather
amusing, and waltzed to her heart's content. She rode Arion in the Row,
and horse and rider were admired as perfect after then kind. Once she
met Lord Mallow, riding beside Lady Mabel Ashbourne and the Duke of
Dovedale. His florid cheek paled a little at the sight of her. They
passed each other with a friendly bow, and this was their only meeting.
Lord Mallow left cards at the house in Mayfair a week before the
Winstanleys went back to Hampshire. He had been working hard at his
senatorial duties, and had made some telling speeches upon the Irish
land question. People talked of him as a rising politician; and,
whenever his n