the
Winsleigh drawing-rooms,--puffy old dowagers occupy the sofas, ottomans,
and chairs, and the largest and most brilliant portion of the assemblage
are standing, grinning into each other's faces with praiseworthy and
polite pertinacity, and talking as rapidly as though their lives
depended on how many words they could utter within the space of two
minutes. Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, Mrs. Van Clupp and Marcia make their way
slowly through the gabbling, pushing, smirking crowd till they form a
part of the little _coterie_ immediately round Lady Winsleigh, to whom,
at the first opportunity, Mrs. Marvelle whispers--

"Have they come?"

"The modern Paris and the new Helen?" laughs Lady Clara, with a shrug of
her snowy shoulders. "No, not yet. Perhaps they won't turn up at all!
Marcia dear, you look _quite_ charming! Where is Lord Algy?"

"I guess he's not a thousand miles away!" returns Marcia, with a knowing
twinkle of her dark eyes. "He'll hang round here presently!
Why,--there's Mr. Lorimer worrying in at the doorway!"

"Worrying in" is scarcely the term to apply to the polite but determined
manner in which George Lorimer coolly elbows a passage among the heaving
bare shoulders, backs, fat arms, and long trains that seriously obstruct
his passage, but after some trouble he succeeds in his efforts to reach
his fair hostess, who receives him with rather a supercilious uplifting
of her delicate eyebrows.

"Dear me, Mr. Lorimer, you are quite a stranger!" she observes somewhat
satirically. "We thought you had made up your mind to settle in Norway!"

"Did you really, though!" and Lorimer smiles languidly. "I wonder at
that,--for you knew I came back from that region in the August of last
year."

"And since then I suppose you have played the hermit?" inquires her
ladyship indifferently, unfurling her fan of ostrich feathers and waving
it slowly to and fro.

"By no means! I went off to Scotland with a friend, Alec Macfarlane, and
had some excellent shooting. Then, as I never permit my venerable mamma
to pass the winter in London, I took her to Nice, from which delightful
spot we returned three weeks ago."

Lady Winsleigh laughs. "I did not ask you for a categorical explanation
of your movements, Mr. Lorimer," she says lightly--"I'm sure I hope you
enjoyed yourself?"

He bows gravely. "Thanks! Yes,--strange to say, I _did_ manage to
extract a little pleasure here and there out of the universal dryness of
things."

"Hav