some elaborate embroidery in her delicate old
ringed hands. Her pale, colorless eyes were as keen as ever. Her white
hair was covered by a wonderful lace cap, which no one had ever
succeeded in imitating, that fell in soft lappets and graceful folds
round the severe, dignified face. Molly, Evelyn's little daughter, stood
in great awe of Lady Mary, who had such a splendid stick with a silver
crook of her very own, and who made remarks in French in Molly's
presence which that young lady could not understand, and felt that it
was not intended she should. She even regarded with a certain veneration
the cap itself, which she had once met in equivocal circumstances,
journeying with a plait of white hair towards Lady Mary's rooms.

It was the first time since their marriage, of which she had not
approved, that Lady Mary had paid a visit to Ralph and Evelyn at
Atherstone. Lady Mary had tried to marry Ralph, in days gone by, to a
woman who--but it was an old story and better forgotten. Ralph had
married his first cousin when he had married Evelyn, and Lady Mary had
strenuously objected to the match, and had even gone so far as to
threaten to alter certain clauses in her will, which she had made in
favor of Ralph, her younger nephew, at a time when she was at daggers
drawn with her eldest nephew, Charles, now Sir Charles Danvers. But that
was an old story, too, and better forgotten.

When Charles succeeded his father some three years ago, and when, after
eight years, Molly had still remained an only child, and one of the
wrong kind, of no intrinsic value to the family, Lady Mary decided that
by-gones should be by-gones, and became formally reconciled to Charles,
with whom she had already found it exceedingly inconvenient, and
consequently unchristian, not to be on speaking terms. As long as he was
the scapegrace son of Sir George Danvers her Christian principles
remained in abeyance; but when he suddenly succeeded to the baronetcy
and Stoke Moreton, the air of which suited her so well, and, moreover,
to that convenient _pied a terre_, the house in Belgrave Square, she
allowed feelings, which she said she had hitherto repressed with
difficulty, their full scope, expressed a Christian hope that, now that
he had come to this estate, Charles would put away Bohemian things, and
instantly set to work to find a suitable wife for him.

At first Lady Mary felt that the task which she had imposed upon herself
would (D.V.) be light indee