kind.

She stayed much too long for a first visit, and as she went of course
produced another card, saying to the muffled lady:

"Pleased to have met you, Lady Muenster. I hope you'll call and see our
new house. We're going to give a ball soon. We're entertaining this
season."

"She certainly is," murmured Lady Gertrude. Then, as she left: "My dear,
where do you pick up your extraordinary friends?"

This was a particularly nasty one for Lady Kellynch, who made such a
point of her exclusiveness.

"Clifford is responsible for this, I think," said Bertha. "The boys are
at the same school, and they've been very kind to him. I think she's
very amusing, and a good sort."

"Oh, quite a character! She told me she met her husband at Blackpool. He
fell in love with her when she was playing Prince Charming in No. 2 B
Company on tour with the pantomime _Little Miss Muffet_."

"Just what one would have thought!" said Lady Kellynch, rather
tragically.

"I've come to ask you if you'll go with Percy to the Queen's Hall
to-morrow," Bertha said. "He wants you to come so much."

The mother delightedly consented.

"Curious fad that is the mania for serious music," said Lady Gertrude.
"You don't share your husband's taste for it, it seems?"

"Well, I do, really. But it's such a treat for him to take his mother
out!" said Bertha tactfully.

"I say, Bertha, may I come back with you? I'm going back to school next
week."

"Of course you shall, if your mother likes."

His mother was glad to agree. She did not feel inclined to discuss Mrs.
Pickering with the boy that evening.

"Try and make him see what an awful woman she is," she murmured.

"I will; but it isn't dangerous," laughed Bertha. "Madeline is spending
the evening with me to-morrow."

"Oh yes, that nice quiet girl. By the way, do you know, I heard she was
engaged to young Charles Hillier. And then somewhere else I was told it
was Mr. Rupert Denison."

"It's neither," calmly replied Bertha, "But I believe each of them
proposed to her."

"Is that a fact? Dear me! Just fancy her refusing them both! What a
grief for poor Mrs. Irwin!"

Bertha laughed as she remembered that as a matter of fact Madeline had
accepted both, within two days.

CHAPTER XXVI

NEWS FROM VENICE

Madeline was sitting one afternoon with her mother in their little
Chippendale flat, all inlaid mahogany and old-fashioned chintz, china in
cabinets, and miniatures on crimson velvet; it