CHAPTER VI.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

"BUT she is pretty," said the Duchess of Ruffborough.

That incomparable civil servant, Mr Hubert Hanley Smart Hanley, made haste to protest. "My dear duchess," he said, "say rather comely. It is the beauty of the dairy."

The duchess, presenting her own pale daughter to the world, had announced that she was a beauty. She had acquainted Mr Hanley with the fact; he had mentioned it everywhere, and most people had accepted a belief which saved the trouble of discussion. "Come in to-morrow evening," said the great lady, "if you have nothing better to do." He had nothing better to do. "And bring a song," she added. He would be delighted; he bowed and smiled to her shoulder, and accepted his dismissal.

Old Lady Dunduffy, looking round on mankind with harassed and eager eyes, was understood to mutter her doubts whether so brilliant an appearance in a young girl could be considered proper. There could be no doubt as to the propriety of the Hon. Sophia Dunne and her sisters, more numerous than the cardinal virtues.

"A thundering pretty girl," said Captain Loyd, who had gone from Eton into the Grenadiers, and who was held by his juniors an uncommonly good judge of the other sex. The young giant, in moving to a better post of observation, trod heavily on the little patent-leather foot of Tom Peepin. Mr Peepin, who claims descent from the ancient kings of France, disguised his agony, and whispered to his big friend that the new beauty came of a monstrous old family, which had intermarried with the Coventry branch of his own illustrious race.

"This golden hair is really too common," observed Miss Braunenbaum, the heiress.

"Take care, my poy," said Leonard Grunenhausen, to a friend; "she is peutiful as the dawd, but she has three little prothers." He held up three fat fingers for emphasis, and placed one of them for a moment by the side of his shapely nose.

Lord Humphrey Durfey, who never spoke to

girls because they were so heavy in hand, asked for an introduction to the new beauty. Mrs Midelmass Duff, who had been in close conversation with Lord Humphrey, wondered what men could see in a girl so totally deficient in style. Mrs Midelmass Duff has style. She is famous for her resemblance to a great prima donna of Parisian opéra bouffe, and, according to her friend Lady Raddley, is apt to forget that she is not dressing for the part of the Princess Popomakamikka in the play. But then Lady Raddley has no doubt heard that cruel speech about her own brilliant colour, and is well aware that Mrs Duff has wit, a pretty wit, and as Parisian as her gowns.

Miss Katharine Adare was pleased and irritated by the excitement which she caused. To wake from a life of school-room, park, and village-to wake and find herself famous in the glare and bustle of society-was too sudden a change. She wanted time to consider her position-to enjoy her triumph. She wanted to observe this strange world; but wherever she looked she saw only eyes, before which she must drop her own. The air seemed full of her whispered name. So many people were thinking about her, that she was obliged to think about herself. She had to as

sume unconsciousness of the admiration around her, and to enter rooms with a fine air of selfpossession. All this was very hard to one so frank by nature, and so little given to pondering on her own states of mind. She looked in the glass with unwonted anxiety. She wondered if she was really so handsome. She was half inclined to lament the brilliancy of her appearance. These golden blondes are too rare, like the masterpieces of the great Venetian, who dipped his brush in sunlight. The tall, proud girl was half ashamed of her beauty. She told herself that she was countrified, and resisted the temptation to powder. It was not until she found herself in the country at Easter that Miss Katharine tasted the sweets of success. She was free once more, and able to be natural. She enjoyed the humour of the thing. She conjured up the picture of the shy school-girl, and that of the young lady of fashion, and laughed at herself in both characters. She laughed at the men, too, as she called to mind the heavy attentions of Captain Loyd, and the half-timid, half-patronising, compliments of Mr Peepin, who was but a nervous man of the world. She thought that she knew all about Society now, and was ready to play her part in all its pageants. She fancied all sorts of dazzling