as half a dozen might
be discerned dimly, just where it waved back from mademoiselle's face.

That same afternoon she and Rosalie left town for one of their
country-house visits. It was a weepy autumn day, and she was not as
fresh as usual--the hair-dresser, combined with some troublesome
shopping, had tired her--and the disquieting suspicion laid hold of her
that she was more easily fatigued than she used to be. While reading
her novel in the train, she counted her years, and compared herself
with the women she knew whose ages were recorded in the Peerage, and
who could therefore be proved to be as old as herself. Some of them
were wrinkled hags. Carelessness or ill-health, doubtless, she
reflected; and neither charge could be laid at her door. Heigh-ho! That
horrid man!

It was dark night when they reached the little station belonging to the
mansion that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants
and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and
luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall
footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and
dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear.
Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as
she passed. It was all a matter of course to her these days.

She was too late for the big tea-party; the men had gone to the
smoking-room, the women to their own firesides. After a brief but
affectionate interview with her titled hostess, Deb was soon at hers,
slippered and dressing-gowned, sipping the jaded woman's stimulant,
warming the damp and dismalness out of her, assuring herself
confidently that she was not an old woman, and had no intention of
becoming one.

Certainly, when Rosalie had dressed her, she was entitled to an easy
mind. The best of everything tonight, in vindication of her still
unimpaired beauty and potency. Shimmering brocade of her favourite red,
and lace like fairy work; and then that magnificent satin-white breast
and massive throat, and the stately head crowned with the famous five
stars, whose flashing made the eye wink, and which yet were dimmed by
the light of her dark eyes. She surveyed herself with full content when
the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep a-down corridors
and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew that her entrance
into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its customary effect
than could the a