"

"Fairly so," answers Lord Masherville indifferently. "I only came back
two days ago. Lady Winsleigh met me by chance at the theatre, and asked
me to look in to-night for 'some fun' she said. Have you any idea what
she meant?"

"Of course!" says the fair New Yorker, with a little nasal
laugh,--"don't _yew_ know? We're all here to see the fisherwoman from
the wilds of Norway,--the creature Sir Philip Errington married last
year. I conclude she'll give us fits all round, don't yew?"

Lord Masherville, at this, appears to hesitate. His eye-glass troubles
him, and he fidgets with its black string. He is not intellectual--he is
the most vacillating, most meek and timid of mortals--but he is a
gentleman in his own poor fashion, and has a sort of fluttering chivalry
about him, which, though feeble, is better than none.

"I really cannot tell you, Miss Marcia," he replies almost nervously. "I
hear--at the Club,--that--that Lady Bruce-Errington is a great beauty."

"Dew tell!" shrieks Marcia, with a burst of laughter. "Is she really
though! But I guess her looks won't mend her grammar any way!"

He makes no reply, as by this time they have reached the crowded
drawing-room, where Lady Winsleigh, radiant in ruby velvet and
rose-brilliants, stands receiving her guests, with a cool smile and nod
for mere acquaintances,--and a meaning flash of her dark eyes for her
intimates, and a general air of haughty insolence and perfect
self-satisfaction pervading her from head to foot. Close to her is her
husband, grave, courtly, and kind to all comers, and fulfilling his duty
as host to perfection,--still closer is Sir Francis Lennox, who in the
pauses of the incoming tide of guests finds occasion to whisper trifling
nothings in her tiny white ear, and even once ventures to arrange more
tastefully a falling cluster of pale roses that rests lightly on the
brief shoulder-strap (called by courtesy a sleeve) which, keeps her
ladyship's bodice in place.

Mrs. Rush-Marvelle is here too, in all her glory,--her good-humored
countenance and small nose together beam with satisfaction,--her
voluminous train of black satin showered with jet gets in everybody's
way,--her ample bosom heaves like the billowy sea, somewhat above the
boundary line of transparent lace that would fain restrain it--but in
this particular she is prudence itself compared with her hostess, whose
charms are exhibited with the unblushing frankness of a
ballet-girl,--and who