next. She cares not a rush for any
of them, only wants to be run after. As to her followers, some of them
are really smitten, I fancy. There was Fitzhugh, but he is an old hand,
and can pay her in her own coin, and that sober-faced young Mervyn--it
is a bad case with him. In fact, there is a fresh one whenever she goes
out--a Jenny Dennison in high life--but the most bitten of all, I take
it, is Lord St. Erme.'

'Lord St. Erme!' exclaimed both auditors in a breath.

'Ay. She met him at that breakfast, walked about the gardens with him
all the morning, and my mother wrote to my aunt, I believe, that she was
booked. Then at this Bryanstone soiree, the next night, Fitzhugh was in
the ascendant--poor St. Erme could not so much as gain a look.'

'So he is in London!' said Violet. 'Do tell me what he is like.'

'Like a German music-master,' said Arthur. 'As queer a figure as ever
I saw. Keeps his hair parted in the middle, hanging down in long lank
rats' tails, meant to curl, moustache ditto, open collar turned down,
black ribbon tie.'

'Oh! how amazed the Wrangerton people would be!'

'It is too much to study the picturesque in one's own person in
England!' said John, laughing. 'I am sorry he continues that fashion.'

'So, of course,' continued Arthur, 'all the young ladies are raving
after him, while he goes mooning after Theodora. How the fair sex must
solace itself with abusing "that Miss Martindale!"'

'I wish he would be a little more sensible,' said John. 'He really is
capable of something better.'

'Where did you know him?'

'At Naples. I liked him very much till he persecuted me beyond endurance
with Tennyson and Browning. He is always going about in raptures with
some new-fashioned poet.'

'I suppose he will set up Theodora for his muse. My mother is enchanted;
he is exactly one of her own set, music, pictures, and all. The
second-hand courtship is a fine chance for her when Miss Martindale is
ungracious.'

'But it will not come to anything,' said John. 'In the meantime, her
ladyship gets the benefit of a lion, and a very tawny lion, for her
soirees.'

'Oh! that soiree will be something pleasant for you,' said Violet.

'I shall cut it. It is the first day I can be here.'

'Not meet that great African traveller?'

'What good would Baron Munchausen himself do me in the crowd my mother
is heaping together?'

'I am sure your mother and sister must want you.'

'Want must be their master. I am not