esides it was not her fault," said Minnie triumphantly, "that
her first husband died."

"It was her fault that she married again, surely."

"Oh, what do you know about it, Chatty? An unmarried girl can't really
have any experience on that subject. Well, to be sure it was her own
doing marrying again: but a lady of any rank _never_ gives up her title
on marrying a commoner. A baronet's wife, as I say,--but then a baronet
is only a commoner himself."

"You seem to have thoroughly studied the subject, Minnie."

"Yes, I have studied it; marrying into a noble family naturally changes
one's ideas. And the Thynnes are very particular. You should have seen
my mother-in-law arranging the dinner-party she asked to meet us. _I_
went first of course as the bride, but there was Lady Highcourt and Lady
Grandmaison, both countesses, and the creation within twenty years of
each other. Eustace said nobody but his mother could have recollected
without looking it up that the Grandmaisons date from 1425 and the
Highcourts only from 1450--not the very oldest nobility either of them,"
said Minnie, with a grand air. "The Thynnebroods date from 1395."

"But then," said Mrs. Warrender, much amused, shooting a bow at a
venture, "their descent counts in the female line."

Upon which a deep blush, a wave of trouble and shame, passed over Minnie's
countenance. "Only in one case," she cried, "only once; and that you will
allow is not much in five hundred years."

This bridal pair had arrived on their visit only the day before: they
had taken a long holiday, and had been visiting many friends. It was
now about two months since their marriage, and the gowns in Minnie's
trousseau began to lose their obtrusive newness: nor can it be said that
her sentiments were new. They were only modified a little by her present
_milieu_. "I suppose," she said, after an interval, "that Lady Markland
will come to see me as soon as she knows I am here. Shall they have any
one there for the shooting this year? Eustace quite looks forward to a
day now and then. There is the Warren at least, which poor dear papa
never preserved, but which I hope Theo--Eustace says that Theo will
really be failing in his duty if he does not preserve."

"I know nothing about their plans or their visitors. Theo is very
unlikely to think of a party of sportsmen, who were never much in his
way."

Chatty in the meantime had gone out of the room about her flowers, which
were always her