me the brougham and the harness. Is Master Sid asleep?"
she inquired of the maid who had been patiently waiting at the door. "I
meant to have got home in time to kiss him."

She led Honora up the narrow but thickly carpeted stairs to a miniature
boudoir, where Madame Adelaide, in a gilt rococo frame, looked
superciliously down from the walls.

"Why haven't you been in to see me since my tea, Honora? You were such a
success, and after you left they were all crazy to know something about
you, and why they hadn't heard of you. My dear, how much did little
Harris charge you for that dress? If I had your face and neck and figure
I'd die before I'd live in Rivington. You're positively wasted, Honora.
And if you stay there, no one will look at you, though you were as
beautiful as Mrs. Langtry."

"You're rather good-looking yourself, Lily," said Honora.

"I'm ten years older than you, my dear, and I have to be so careful. Sid
says I'm killing myself, but I've found a little massage woman who is
wonderful. How do you like this dress?"

"All your things are exquisite."

"Do you think so?" cried Mrs. Dallam, delightedly.

Honora, indeed, had not perjured herself. Only the hypercritical, when
Mrs. Dallam was dressed, had the impression of a performed miracle. She
was the most finished of finished products. Her complexion was high and
(be it added) natural, her hair wonderfully 'onduled', and she had withal
the sweetest and kindest of smiles and the most engaging laughter in the
world. It was impossible not to love her.

"Howard," she cried, when a little later they were seated at the table,
"how mean of you to have kept Honora in a dead and alive place like
Rivington all these years! I think she's an angel to have stood it. Men
are beyond me. Do you know what an attractive wife you've got? I've just
been telling her that there wasn't a woman at my tea who compared with
her, and the men were crazy about her."

"That's the reason I live down there," proclaimed Howard, as he finished
his first glass of champagne.

"Honora," demanded Mrs. Dallam, ignoring his bravado, "why don't you take
a house at Quicksands? You'd love it, and you'd look simply divine in a
bathing suit. Why don't you come down?"

"Ask Howard," replied Honora, demurely.

"Well, Lily, I'll own up I have been considering it a little," that
gentleman admitted with gravity. "But I haven't decided anything. There
are certain drawbacks--"

"Drawbacks!" excl