d to her novelist, and made love to Tommy quite
shamelessly.

"You look like an Eastern potentate, you are so silent and serious," she
told him once. "Do I bore you so horribly, or is it Miss Letchworth?"

"I am not bored at all, Duchess," answered the boy simply; "I am
thinking."

"And what are you thinking about?"

Tommy hesitated. Under her frivolous manner he knew the Duchess had a
heart, and very human sympathies.

"I want to be a violinist," he said slowly, after a pause during which
the Duchess, with a little shriek, rescued her salad, which William had
pounced upon.

"A violinist!"

"Hush! Please don't tell."

"Of course I'll not tell, but----"

"Have you heard him play?"

"Joyselle? Of course I have."

"Well?" asked Tommy in quiet triumph. What more could anyone say?

The old woman smiled sweetly at him. She, too, had been young, and
remembered. And there was in this little, plain boy a certain strain of
blood that she loved; his grandmother had been a Yeoland.

"So you really love it that much, do you? It means hard work, Tommy."

"I know," nodded the boy gravely.

And his mother, seeing his gravity, feared that he was not being
sufficiently quaint to amuse the old lady, and screamed down the table
at him to tell the Duchess the story of the jibbing pony at the Irish
race meeting. The story was not told.

On her right hand Lady Kingsmead had the local M.F.H., a dull man with
his head full of hounds, as she expressed it. But on her left sat
Joyselle, and as a guest he was certainly perfect. Lady Kingsmead in
pale pink and pearls was good enough to look at, and feeling that she
wished to be made love to, he made love to her, as was his duty. And he
did it well, for he was an artist. He was not conspicuous, or
over-impassioned, or over-adoring (very few women like unmixed
adoration), but he was amusing, a trifle outrageous, admiring, and
tactful. He was also amazingly handsome.

Down to her left Lady Kingsmead could see Carron being bored to death by
the wife of the M.F.H., who, someone said, if he had _his_ head full of
hounds and foxes, certainly had hers full of coals and blankets. For the
vicar was a bachelor, and poor Lady Brinsley hated hounds and foxes, and
really loved helping the poor. And being of the simple-minded who talk
to strangers out of the fulness of their hearts, she was telling him
sadly of the shameful way in which the coal-dealer had cheated poor,
dear Mr. Smith.

Me