e couldn't dress without going to sleep first."
As nobody else came for a quarter of an hour Mrs. Houghton had an
opportunity of explaining some things. "Has Mrs. Montacute Jones
called? I suppose you were out of your wits to find out who she was.
She's a very old friend of papa's, and I asked her to call. She gives
awfully swell parties, and has no end of money. She was one of the
Montacutes of Montacute, and so she sticks her own name on to her
husband's. He's alive, I believe, but he never shews. I think she keeps
him somewhere down in Wales."

"How odd!"

"It is a little queer, but when you come to know her you'll find it
will make no difference. She's the ugliest old woman in London, but I'd
be as ugly as she is to have her diamonds."

"I wouldn't," said Mary.

"Your husband cares about your appearance," said Mrs. Houghton, turning
her eyes upon Lord George. He simpered and looked pleased and did not
seem to be at all disgusted by their friend's slang, and yet had she
talked of "awfully swell" parties, he would, she was well aware, have
rebuked her seriously.

Miss Houghton--Hetta Houghton--was the first to arrive, and she
somewhat startled Mary by the gorgeous glories of her dress, though
Mrs. Houghton afterwards averred that she wasn't "a patch upon Mrs.
Montacute Jones." But Miss Houghton was a lady, and though over forty
years of age, was still handsome.

"Been hunting to-day, has he?" she said. "Well, if he likes it, I
shan't complain. But I thought he liked his ease too well to travel
fifty miles up to town after riding about all day."

"Of course he's knocked up, and at his age it's quite absurd," said the
young wife. "But Hetta, I want you to know my particular friend Lady
George Germain. Lord George, if he'll allow me to say so, is a cousin,
though I'm afraid we have to go back to Noah to make it out."

"Your great-grandmother was my great-grandmother's sister. That's not
so very far off."

"When you get to grandmothers no fellow can understand it, can they,
Mary?" Then came Mr. and Miss Mildmay. He was a gray-haired old
gentleman, rather short and rather fat, and she looked to be just such
another girl as Mrs. Houghton herself had been, though blessed with
more regular beauty. She was certainly handsome, but she carried with
her that wearied air of being nearly worn out by the toil of searching
for a husband which comes upon some young women after the fourth or
fifth year of their labours. For