ay be sure it is perfect.'

'But on the stage, by gaslight, in the midst of unrealities,' argued
Lesbia. 'That makes such a difference.'

'My dear, there is no difference nowadays between the stage and the
drawing-room. Whatever Chaumont wears you may wear. And now let us think
of the second day. I think as your first costume is to be nautical, and
rather masculine, your second should be somewhat languishing and
_vaporeux_. Creamy Indian muslin, wild flowers, a large Leghorn hat.'

'And what will Miladi herself wear?' asked the French woman of Lady
Kirkbank. 'She must have something of new.'

'No, at my age, it doesn't matter. I shall wear one of my cotton frocks,
and my Dunstable hat.'

Lesbia shuddered, for Lady Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacle
at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matter
to Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil to
her own fresh young beauty Lady Kirkbank was admirable.

They drove down to Rood Hall early next week, Sir George conveying them
in his drag, with a change of horses at Maidenhead. The weather was
peerless; the country exquisite, approached from London. How different
that river landscape looks to the eyes of the traveller returning from
the wild West of England, the wooded gorges of Cornwall and Devon, the
Tamar and the Dart. Then how small and poor and mean seems silvery
Thames, gliding peacefully between his willowy bank, singing his lullaby
to the whispering sedges; a poor little river, a flat commonplace
landscape, says the traveller, fresh from moorland and tor, from the
rocky shore of the Atlantic, the deep clefts of the great, red hills.

To Lesbia's eyes the placid stream and the green pastures, breathing
odours of meadow-sweet and clover, seemed passing lovely. She was
pleased with her own hat and parasol too, which made her graciously
disposed towards the landscape; and the last packet of gloves from North
Audley Street fitted without a wrinkle. The glovemaker was beginning to
understand her hand, which was a study for a sculptor, but which had its
little peculiarities.

Nor was she ill-disposed to Mr. Smithson, who had come up to town by an
early train, in order to lunch in Arlington Street and go back by coach,
seated just behind Lady Lesbia, who had the box seat beside Sir George.

The drive was delightful. It was a few minutes after five when the coach
drove past the picturesque old gate-house into Mr.