en, made the coffee herself, and brought up
with it the nearest thing to the morning rolls of the Palazzo Barberini
which Oxford could provide--with a copy of _The Times_ specially ordered
for Lady Constance. The household itself subsisted on a copy of the
_Morning Post_, religiously reserved to Mrs. Hooper after Dr. Hooper had
glanced through it--he, of course, saw _The Times_ at the Union. But
Connie regarded a newspaper at breakfast as a necessary part of life.

After her coffee, accordingly, she read _The Times_, and smoked a
cigarette, proceedings which were a daily source of wonder to Nora and
reprobation in the minds of Mrs. Hooper and Alice. Then she generally
wrote her letters, and was downstairs after all by half past ten,
dressed and ready for the day. Mrs. Hooper declared to Dr. Ewen that she
would be ashamed for any of their Oxford friends to know that a niece of
his kept such hours, and that it was a shocking example for the
servants. But the maids took it with smiles, and were always ready to
run up and down stairs for Lady Connie; while as for Oxford, the
invitations which had descended upon the Hooper family, even during the
few days since Connie's arrival, had given Aunt Ellen some feverish
pleasure, but perhaps more annoyance. So far from Ewen's "position"
being of any advantage to Connie, it was Connie who seemed likely to
bring the Hoopers into circles of Oxford society where they had till now
possessed but the slenderest footing. An invitation to dinner from the
Provost of Winton and Mrs. Manson, to "Dr. and Mrs. Hooper, Miss Hooper
and Lady Constance Bledlow," to meet an archbishop, had fairly taken
Mrs. Hooper's breath away. But she declaimed to Alice none the less in
private on the innate snobbishness of people.

Nora, however, wished to understand.

"I can't imagine why you should read _The Times_," she said with
emphasis, as Connie pushed her tray away, and looked for her cigarettes.
"What have you to do with politics?"

"Why, _The Times_ is all about people I know!" said Connie, opening
amused eyes. "Look there!" And she pointed to the newspaper lying open
amid the general litter of her morning's post, and to a paragraph among
the foreign telegrams describing the excitement in Rome over a change of
Ministry. "Fall of the Italian Cabinet. The King sends for the Marchese
Bardinelli."

"And there's a letter from Elisa Bardinelli, telling me all about it!"
She tossed some closely-written she