ut an admixture of brilliants.'

'Will the diamonds add very much to the expense?' Lesbia inquired,
timidly.

'My dear child, you are perfectly safe in leaving the matter in Mr.
Cabochon's hands,' interposed Lady Kirkbank, who had particular reasons
for wishing to be on good terms with the head of the establishment. 'Your
dear grandmother gave you the amethysts to be reset; and of course she
would wish it to be done in an artistic manner. Otherwise, as Mr.
Cabochon judiciously says, why have the stones reset at all? Better wear
them in all their present hideousness.'

Of course, after this Lesbia consented to the amethysts being dealt with
according to Mr. Cabochon's taste.

'Which is simply perfect,' interjected Lady Kirkbank.

And now Lesbia's campaign began in real earnest--a life of pleasure, a
life of utter selfishness and self-indulgence, which would go far to
pervert the strongest mind, tarnish the purest nature. To dress and be
admired--that was what Lesbia's life meant from morning till night. She
had no higher or nobler aim. Even on Sunday mornings at the fashionable
church, where the women sat on one side of the nave and the men on the
other, where divinest music was as a pair of wings, on which the
enraptured soul flew heavenward--even here Lesbia thought more of her
bonnet and gloves--the _chic_ or non-_chic_ of her whole costume, than
of the service. She might kneel gracefully, with her bent head, just
revealing the ivory whiteness of a lovely throat, between the edge of
her lace frilling and the flowers in her bonnet. She might look the
fairest image of devotion; but how could a woman pray whose heart was a
milliner's shop, whose highest ambition was to be prettier and better
dressed than other women?

The season was six weeks old. It was Ascot week, the crowning glory of
the year, and Lesbia and her chaperon had secured tickets for the Royal
enclosure--or it may be said rather that Lesbia had secured them--for
the Master of the Royal Buckhounds might have omitted poor old Lady
Kirkbank's familiar name from his list if it had not been for that
lovely girl who went everywhere under the veteran's wing.

Six weeks, and Lesbia's appearance in society had been one perpetual
triumph; but as yet nothing serious had happened. She had had no offers.
Half a dozen men had tried their hardest to propose to her--had sat out
dances, had waylaid her in conservatories and in back drawing-rooms, in
lobbies while s