strong in the belief of her own charms, Mrs. Talbot accepted the
invitation given by Sir Adrian, and at the close of the season she and
Florence Delmaine find themselves the first of a batch of guests come to
spend a month or two at the old castle at Dynecourt.

Mrs. Talbot is still young, and, in her style, very pretty; her eyes are
languishing and blue as gentian, her hair a soft nut-brown; her lips
perhaps are not altogether faultless, being too fine and too closely
drawn, but then her mouth is small. She looks considerably younger than
she really is, and does not forget to make the most of this comfortable
fact. Indeed, to a casual observer, her cousin looks scarcely her
junior.

Miss Delmaine is tall, slender, _posee_ more or less, while Mrs. Talbot
is prettily rounded, _petite_ in every point, and nervously ambitious of
winning the regard of the male sex.

During the past week private theatricals have been suggested. Every one
is tired of dancing and music. The season has given them more than a
surfeit of both, and so they have fallen back upon theatricals.

The play on which they have decided is Goldsmith's famous production,
"She Stoops to Conquer."

Miss Villiers, a pretty girl with yellow hair and charming eyes, is to
be Constantia Neville; Miss Delmaine, Kate Hardcastle; Lady Gertrude
Vining, though rather young for the part, has consented to play Mrs.
Hardcastle, under the impression that she looks well in a cap and
powdered hair. An impossible Tony Lumpkin has been discovered in a
nervous young man with a hesitation in his speech and a difficulty about
the letter "S"--a young man who wofully misunderstands Tony, and brings
him out in a hitherto unknown character; a suitable Hastings has been
found in the person of Captain Ringwood, a gallant young officer, and
one of the "curled darlings" of society.

But who is to play Marlow? Who is to be the happy man, so blessed--even
though in these fictitious circumstances--as to be allowed to make love
to the reigning beauty of the past season? Nearly every man in the house
has thrown out a hint as to his fitness for the part, but as yet no
arrangement has been arrived at.

Sir Adrian of course is the one toward whom all eyes--and some very
jealous ones--are directed. But his duties as host compel him, sorely
against his will, to draw back a little from the proffered honor, and
to consult the wishes of his guests rather than his own. Miss Delmaine
herself ha