etched little frock,
eating my heart out the while at the thought of all my trousseau
grandeurs lying useless at home, and descended--the bride, the guest of
honour--the worst dressed woman in the room! Can you imagine my
suffering?"

Vanna smiled. She could; and also the manner in which Jean would
upbraid her husband after the fray.

"And Robert? What had he to say? How did he look when he first saw you
alone?"

"Radiant, my dear. Beaming! Absolutely, utterly content. Blankly
astonished and dismayed to find that I was not the same. Utterly
unconscious that my dress had been any different from the rest. Blindly
convinced that there had not been one in the room to touch it!"

They both laughed, a tender indulgence shining in their eyes. It was
the look with which women condone the indiscretion of a child; but Jean
was still anxious to expound her own side of the situation.

"Yes! It's charming; but you've no idea how trying it can be at times.
Other women lament because their husbands complain of their meals. I
wish to goodness Robert _would_ complain. It would make things easier
with the maids. Good plain cooks need so much keeping up to the mark,
and I never get a chance of grumbling. When the things are unusually
bad, and I am mentally rehearsing what I shall say in the kitchen next
morning--`you really must make the soup stronger. The gravy was quite
white... Why did the pudding fall to pieces?'--you know the kind of
thing--Robert will lean back with a sigh, and say, `I _have_ had a good
dinner. You've eclipsed yourself to-night. I am getting quite
spoiled.' I glare at him, but it's no use. He says, `What is the
matter, dear?' and I see a smug smile on Brewster's face, and know she
will go straight into the kitchen and repeat the whole tale. How can I
grumble after that? The wind is taken completely out of my sails.
Sometimes I think that for practical, everyday life a saint is even more
trouble than a sinner. Then the friends he brings here! You never knew
such a motley throng. It may be any one from a duke (figuratively a
duke. He has met all sorts of bigwigs, `east of Suez') to a vagrant
with broken boots, and not an `h' in his composition. And it's always
the same description: `do you mind if I bring a man home to dinner
to-night? I met him at --' some outlandish place--`and he was awfully
decent to me. He is passing through town, and I should like to have him
here. Such a goo