on of tiresome pictures she would come
to Bowshott, and hoped that if the gardens would be of any interest to
her she would drive over some afternoon when it was not too hot, and
have tea with her--any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been
giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner
would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she
suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to
see the famous galleries and gardens of her magnificent house.

'How very interesting,' said Canon Wrottesley to Lady Falconer when the
carriage had driven away, 'your meeting like this!' The vicar's
acquaintance was not extensive, and that people should re-encounter
each other or have mutual friends always struck him in the light of a
strange coincidence.

'She has not altered much,' said Sir John Falconer, 'and yet it must be
many years since we met: I suppose she never was good-looking. Somehow
one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to her.'

'I could do nothing but look at her dress,' said Lady Falconer
good-naturedly. 'How is it that everything she wears seems to be in
such perfect taste?'

'Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,' said Canon Wrottesley, enjoying a
proprietary way of talking of his neighbour, 'and she is able to
gratify her love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand these
things myself,' he went on, with a masculine air, 'but the ladies tell
me that her dresses are all that they should be.'

'I don't know what we should have done without her at Juarez,' said
Lady Falconer, in her peculiarly kind manner. 'Sir John and I were on
our honeymoon, and, like many other newly married people, we wanted to
be alone.'

'Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I remember,' interpolated
Sir John, 'otherwise I do not suppose we should ever have heard of the
place. Dudley had been sketching there.'

'I had not a maid with me,' went on Lady Falconer, in her pleasant
voice, 'and Mrs. Ogilvie in the kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she
had with her to do everything for me.'

'Mrs. Ogilvie is always devoted to everything Spanish,' said Mrs.
Wrottesley. 'Her mother was Spanish, and I dare say you know she made
her home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy's death.'

'I did not even know that she had lost a son,' said Lady Falconer.
'How very sad!'

The crowds of gaily-dressed people about them, the shouts of the
bookmakers, and the pleasant sense