life amidst the
hills and waterfalls of Westmoreland, this new life was one perpetual
round of pleasure. She flung herself with all her heart and mind into
the amusement of the moment; she knew neither weariness nor satiety. To
ride in the park in the morning, to go to a luncheon party, a garden
party, to drive in the park for half an hour after the garden party, to
rush home and dress for the fourth or fifth time, and then off to a
dinner, and from dinner to drum, and from drum to big ball, at which
rumour said the Prince and Princess were to be present: and so, from
eleven o'clock in the morning till four or five o'clock next morning,
the giddy whirl went on: and every hour was so occupied by pleasure
engagements that it was difficult to squeeze in an occasional morning
for shopping--necessary to go to the shops sometimes, or one would not
know how many things one really wants--or for an indispensable interview
with the dressmaker. Those mornings at the shops were hardly the least
agreeable of Lesbia's hours. To a girl brought up in one perpetual
_tete-a-tete_ with green hill-sides and silvery watercourses, the West
End shops were as gardens of Eden, as Aladdin Caves, as anything,
everything that is rapturous and intoxicating. Lesbia, the clear-headed,
the cold-hearted, fairly lost her senses when she went into one of those
exquisite shops, where a confusion of brocades and satins lay about in
dazzling masses of richest colour, with here and there a bunch of
lilies, a cluster of roses, a tortoise-shell fan, an ostrich feather, or
a flounce of peerless Point d'Alencon flung carelessly athwart the sheen
of a wine-dark velvet or golden-hued satin.

Lady Maulevrier had said Lesbia was to have _carte blanche_; so Lesbia
bought everything she wanted, or fancied she wanted, or that the
shop-people thought she must want, or that Lady Kirkbank happened to
admire. The shop-people were so obliging, and so deeply obliged by
Lesbia's patronage. She was exactly the kind of customer they liked to
serve. She flitted about their showrooms like a beautiful butterfly
hovering over a flower-bed--her eye caught by every novelty. She never
asked the price of anything: and Lady Kirkbank informed them, in
confidence, that she was a great heiress, with a millionaire grandmother
who indulged her every whim. Other high born young ladies, shopping upon
fixed allowances, and sorely perplexed to make both ends meet, looked
with eyes of envy upon t