f those present knew, the Royalties had
been far too well amused to think of. Then after this <i>pas seul</i>, in the
presence of the crowded drawing-room, had been duly executed, Kitty
retired to her Bishop, and Lord Parham led forth Lady Tranmore.

* * * * *

"What a lovely moon!" said Lady Edith Manley to the Dean. "It makes even
this house look romantic."

They were walking outside the drawing-room windows, on a terrace which
was, indeed, the only feature of the Haggart facade which possessed some
architectural interest. A low balustrade of terra-cotta, copied from a
famous Italian villa, ran round it, broken by large terra-cotta pots now
filled with orange-trees. Here and there between the orange-trees were
statues transported from Naples in the late eighteenth century by a
former Lord Tranmore. There was a Ceres and a Diana, a Vestal Virgin, an
Athlete, and an Antinous, now brought into strange companionship under
the windows of this ugly English house. Chipped and blackened as they
were, and, to begin with, of a mere decorative importance, they still
breathed into the English evening a note of Italy or Greece, of things
lovely and immortal. The lamps in the sitting-rooms streamed out through
the widely opened windows upon the terrace, checkering the marble
figures, which now emerged sharply in the light, and now withdrew in the
gloom; while at one point they shone plainly upon an empty pedestal
before which the Dean and his companion paused.

The Dean looked at the inscription. "What a pity! This once held a
statue of Hebe holding a torch. It was struck by lightning fifty years
ago."

"Lady Kitty might stand for her to-night," said Edith Manley.

For Kitty, the capricious, had appeared at dinner in a <i>quasi</i>-Greek
dress, white, soft, and flowing, without an ornament. The Dean
acquiesced, but rather sadly.

"I wish she had the bloom of Hebe! My dear Lady Edith, our hostess looks
<i>ill</i>!"

"Does she? I can't tell--I admire her so!" said the woman beside him,
upon whose charming eyes some fairy had breathed kindness and optimism
from her cradle.

"<i>Ouf!</i>" cried Kitty, as she sprang across the sill of the window behind
them. "They're <i>all</i> gone! The Bishop wishes me to become a
vice-president of the Women's Diocesan Association. And I've promised
three curates to open bazaars. <i>Ah, mon Dieu!</i>" She raised her white
arms with a wild gesture, and then bec