. Others, of a more sardonic turn, said
that her manner was that of one who continually smelled a bad smell, and
that if she got it by looking at her brother's pictures they didn't
wonder.

Leofwin Balch was not a personable gentleman. The early Saxon strain in
him had taken the form of obesity, a tendency not confined, if we may
trust the evidence of scholars, to descendants of Saxon kings. To those
who had little sympathy with genius in its more alarming shapes, his
fair chin whisker seemed an absurdity. The more discriminating, however,
welcomed it. Anything might be expected of a man with a chin whisker
which some one, with more imagination than restraint, had described as
an "attenuated shredded wheat biscuit seen through a glass darkly."
Leofwin's work had of late years suffered on account of a rheumatism
which defied medicine. He had sacrificed his tonsils and nine teeth upon
the altar of Art with little or no relief, and it was now feared by
those closest to him, his sister and himself, that he would never again
approach the promise given in his "Willows." "Willows" had received an
honourable mention at the Exhibition--just which Exhibition, was a
subject of controversy among the uninitiated--and had been purchased by
a rich baronet in Suffolk. The Balches had seen it in his gallery, and
it had become an open secret that hanging in the same room were a
Constable and a John Opie.

Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had arrived and was already with a group of
the great around her chair. She was wearing the famous Lee-Satterlee dog
collar, and her hair had been carefully dressed for the occasion. Such
items alone would have borne witness to the importance of the Vernal,
had she not in addition chosen to carry the Court fan. This fan, which
was known as the "Court fan" to distinguish it from all other fans in
the world, had been given her by the Court ladies when she and her
husband, the late Ambassador, had departed upon the arrival of the new
Administration's appointee. Its sticks were mother-of-pearl, encrusted
with diamonds, and on its silk was the cruel story of Pyramus and Thisbe
set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite
knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with
kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it was
therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of
Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the