of keeping the
girl a little longer with her, and she would doubtless have continued
her deceptions had not General Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully
paying himself back all the days that were owed to him by his niece.

'My mother says she is going to give a ball,' announced Peter at dinner.

'When?' said Jane, breathless with interest. 'Peter, we 'll have both
houses as full as they can be, and I 'll ask Aunt Mary to stay here,
and you shall ask your mother to stay at Bowshott for it.'

'Jane,' said Miss Abingdon, 'you are very absurd, and just at present
you are making the most extraordinary grimaces.'

'I got caught in the rain to-day,' said Jane, 'and had to walk with it
in my face. I 'm quite sure rain must be a skin-tightener like those
things you see in advertisements.'

'It's given you an awfully jolly colour,' said Peter.

'Has it?' said Jane.

Perhaps a compliment had been given and received, Miss Abingdon did not
know. Beauty itself was almost at a discount nowadays. Even feminine
vanity, so long accepted as the mainspring of feminine action, had lost
its force. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, and frankness had superseded
sentiment.

'What souvenir would they give each other if they had to part?' thought
Miss Abingdon--'a terrier dog, or a gun, or a walking-stick, most
likely!' Faded flowers were quite out of the fashion, and old letters
no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about them. Was perfect
healthiness ever very interesting, and must sentiment always be
connected with an embroidery frame, a narrow chest, and round shoulders?

Jane obliterated the _menu_ from the porcelain tablet in front of her
by rubbing it with a damask table-napkin, and, having moistened a
pencil, she began to write a list of names of those people who were to
be asked to stay for the dance. 'Kitty Sherard certainly,' she said,
and put the name down on the tablet.

'She 's some one's niece, isn't she?' said Peter.

'She 's every one's niece, I think,' replied Jane.

'Rather rough luck on Miss Sherard,' said Peter.

'It's a fact, though,' Jane went on. 'Really and truly, Aunt Mary,
each of her relations married about ten times, and then the next
generation married each other. And they send problems to the puzzle
column of newspapers to find out how they are related to each other.
Kitty's father is his own great-grandmother, or something complicated
of that sort!'

'It must give one an immense res