g in
whatever is the latest artistic craze of the moment. She is a very
_select_ little person, Jean. But she will love the plays and pictures,
and shops and sights. And she has never been abroad--picture that! There
are worlds of things to show her. I find that her great desire--a very
modest one--is to go some April to the Shakespeare Festival at
Stratford-on-Avon. She worships Shakespeare hardly on this side of
idolatry."

"Won't she be disappointed? There is nothing very romantic about
Stratford of to-day."

"Ah, but I think I can stage-manage so that it will come up to her
expectations. A great many things in this world need a little
stage-management. Oh, I hope my plans will work out. I _do_ want Jean."

"But, Pamela--I want Jean too."

Lord Bidborough had risen, and now stood before the fire, his hands in
his pockets, his head thrown back, his eyes no longer lazy and amused,
but keen and alert. This was the man who attempted impossible
things--and did them.

It is never an easy moment for a sister when she realises that an adored
brother no longer belongs to her.

Pamela, after one startled look at her brother, dropped her eyes and
tried to go on with her embroidery, but her hand trembled, and she made
stitches at random.

"Pam, dear, you don't mind? You don't think it an unfriendly act? You
will always be Pam, my only sister; someone quite apart. The new love
won't lessen the old."

"Ah, my dear"--Pamela held out her hands to her brother--"you mustn't
mind if just at first.... You see, it's a great while ago since the
world began, and we've been wonderful friends all the time, haven't we,
Biddy?" They sat together silent for a minute, and then Pamela said,
"And I'm actually crying, when the thing I most wanted has come to pass:
what an idiot! Whenever I saw Jean I wanted her for you. But I didn't
try to work it at all. It all just happened right, somehow. Jean's
beauty isn't for the multitude, nor her charm, and I wondered if she
would appeal to you. You have seen so many pretty girls, and have been
almost surfeited with charm, and remained so calm that I wondered if you
ever would fall in love. The 'manoeuvring mamaws,' as Bella Bathgate
calls the ladies with daughters to marry, quite lost hope where you were
concerned; you never seemed to see their manoeuvres, poor dears.... And
I was so thankful, for I didn't want you to marry the modern type of
girl.... But I hardly dared to hope you would come to