s said about prices; but Lesbia had a vague idea that some of
the things would be rather expensive, and she ventured to ask Lady
Kirkbank if she were not ordering too many gowns.

'My dear, Lady Maulevrier said you were to have _carte blanche_,'
replied Georgie, solemnly. 'Your dear grandmother is as rich as Croesus,
and she is generosity itself; and how should I ever forgive myself if I
allowed you to appear in society in an inadequate style. You have to
take a high place, the very highest place, Lesbia; and you must be
dressed in accordance with that position.'

Lesbia said no more. After all it was Lady Kirkbank's business and not
hers. See had been entrusted to Lady Kirkbank as to a person who
thoroughly knew the great world, and she must submit to be governed by
the wisdom and experience of her chaperon. If the bills were heavy, that
would be Lady Kirkbank's affair; and no doubt dear grandmother was rich
enough to afford anything Lesbia wanted. She had been told that she was
to take rank among heiresses.

Lady Maulevrier had given her granddaughter some old-fashioned
ornaments, topaz, amethysts, turquoise--jewels that had belonged to dead
and gone Talmashes and Angersthorpes--to be reset. This entailed a visit
to a Bond Street jeweller, and in the dazzling glass-cases on the
counter of the Bond Street establishment Lesbia saw a good many things
which she felt were real necessities to her new phase of existence, and
these, with Lady Kirkbank's approval, she ordered. They were not
important matters. Half-a-dozen gold bangles of real oriental
workmanship, three or four jewelled arrows, flies and beetles, and
caterpillars, to pin on her laces and flowers, a diamond clasp for her
pearl necklace, a dear little gold hunter to wear when she rode in the
park, a diamond butterfly to light up that old-fashioned amethyst
_parure_ which the jeweller was to reset with an artistic admixture of
brilliants.

'I am sure you would not like the effect without diamonds,' said the
jeweller. 'Your amethysts are very fine, but they are dark and heavy in
tone, and want a good deal of lighting-up, especially for the present
fashion of half-lighted rooms. If you will allow me to use my own
discretion, and mix in a few brilliants, I shall be able to produce a
really artistic _parure_; otherwise I would not recommend you to touch
them. The present setting is clumsy and inelegant; but I really do not
know that I could improve upon it, witho