ed for the last nine weeks!

"Oh, bother eighteenpence! This is my treat, and we are going to enjoy
ourselves, or know the reason why. I've got a lot of money in the bank,
and I'm just in the mood to spend. We'll go to the Queen's Hall, and
then on to have tea in a restaurant. You would like to hear some
music?"

"So long as it is not a chorus of female voices--I _should_! I'm a
trifle fed up with female voices," cried Sophie gaily. She picked up
her newly-trimmed hat from the table and caressed it fondly. "Come
along, darling. You're going to make your _debut_!"

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE RECEPTION.

It was almost worth while leading a life of all work and no play for six
weeks on end, for the sheer delight of being frivolous once more; of
dressing oneself in one's prettiest frock, drawing on filmy silk
stockings and golden shoes, clasping a pearl necklace round a white
throat and cocking a feathery aigrette at just the right angle among
coppery swathes of hair. No single detail was wanting to complete the
whole, for in the old careless days Claire's garments had been purchased
with a lavish hand, the only anxiety being to secure the most becoming
specimen of its kind. There were long crinkly gloves, and a lace
handkerchief, and a fan composed of curling feathers and mother-of-pearl
sticks, and a dainty bag hanging by golden cords, and a cloak of the
newest shape, composed of layers of different-tinted chiffons, which
looked more like a cloud at sunset than a garment manufactured by human
hands and supposed to be of use!

Claire tilted her little mirror to an acute angle, gave a little skip of
delight as she surveyed the completed whole, and then whirled down the
narrow staircase, a flying mist of draperies, through which the little
gold-clad feet gleamed in and out. She whirled into the sitting-room,
where the solitary lamp stood on the table, and Cecil lay on the humpy
green plush sofa reading a novel from the Free Library. She put down
the book and stared with wide eyes as Claire gave an extra whirl for her
benefit, and cried jubilantly--

"Admire me! Admire me! I'm dying to be admired! Don't I look fine,
and smart, and unsuitable! Will any one in the world mistake me for a
High School-mistress!"

Cecil rose from the sofa, and made a solemn tour of inspection.
Obviously she was impressed, obviously she admired, obviously also she
found something startling in her inspection. There was pure fe