the country. I think you might like it."

Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate at this moment were sitting in silence,
and the young man's ear caught these last words of Lord Lambeth's.
"He's inviting Miss Bessie to one of his castles," he murmured to his
companion.

Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she mentally called "complications,"
immediately got up; and the two ladies, taking leave of Lord Lambeth,
returned, under Mr. Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel.

Lord Lambeth came to see them on the morrow, bringing Percy Beaumont
with him--the latter having instantly declared his intention of
neglecting none of the usual offices of civility. This declaration,
however, when his kinsman informed him of the advent of their American
friends, had been preceded by another remark.

"Here they are, then, and you are in for it."

"What am I in for?" demanded Lord Lambeth.

"I will let your mother give it a name. With all respect to whom," added
Percy Beaumont, "I must decline on this occasion to do any more police
duty. Her Grace must look after you herself."

"I will give her a chance," said her Grace's son, a trifle grimly. "I
shall make her go and see them."

"She won't do it, my boy."

"We'll see if she doesn't," said Lord Lambeth.

But if Percy Beaumont took a somber view of the arrival of the two
ladies at Jones's Hotel, he was sufficiently a man of the world to
offer them a smiling countenance. He fell into animated
conversation--conversation, at least, that was animated on her
side--with Mrs. Westgate, while his companion made himself agreeable
to the younger lady. Mrs. Westgate began confessing and protesting,
declaring and expounding.

"I must say London is a great deal brighter and prettier just now
than it was when I was here last--in the month of November. There
is evidently a great deal going on, and you seem to have a good many
flowers. I have no doubt it is very charming for all you people, and
that you amuse yourselves immensely. It is very good of you to let
Bessie and me come and sit and look at you. I suppose you will think I
am very satirical, but I must confess that that's the feeling I have in
London."

"I am afraid I don't quite understand to what feeling you allude," said
Percy Beaumont.

"The feeling that it's all very well for you English people. Everything
is beautifully arranged for you."

"It seems to me it is very well for some Americans, sometimes," rejoined
Beaumont.

"For some of t