mean?"

"I was taken to see one in the hall."

A sudden light dawned on Helena.

"The Romney? No! And I've been showing it to everybody as the loveliest
thing going!"

"There--you see!"

Helena's face composed itself.

"I don't know why I should be flattered. She was a horrid minx. That no
doubt was what the likeness consisted in!"

Mrs. Friend laughed, but said nothing. Helena rose from the grass,
pausing to say as she turned towards the house:

"We're going to dance in the drawing-room, Mawson says. They've
cleared it."

"Doesn't it look nice?"

Helena assented. "Let me see--" she added slowly--"this is the third
dance, isn't it, since I came?"

"Yes--the third."

"I don't think we need have another"--the tone was decided, almost
impatient--"at least when this party's over."

Mrs. Friend opened her eyes.

"I thought you liked to dance every week-end?"

"Well--ye-es--amongst ourselves. I didn't mean to turn the house
upside-down every week."

"Well, you see--the house-parties have been so large. And besides there
have been neighbours."

"I didn't ask _them_," said Helena. "But--we won't have another--till we
go to Town."

"Very well. It might be wise. The servants are rather tired, and if they
give warning, we shall never get any more!"

Mrs. Friend watched the retreating figure of Helena. There had indeed
been a dizzy succession of week-end parties, and it seemed to her that
Lord Buntingford's patience under the infliction had been simply
miraculous. For they rarely contained friends of his own; his lameness
cut him off from dancing; and it had been clear to Lucy Friend that in
many cases Helena's friends had been sharply distasteful to him. He
was, in Mrs. Friend's eyes, a strange mixture as far as social
standards were concerned. A boundless leniency in some cases; the
sternest judgment in others.

For instance, a woman he had known from childhood had lately left her
husband, carried off her children, and joined her lover. Lord Buntingford
was standing, stoutly by her, helping her in her divorce proceedings,
paying for the education of the children, and defending her whenever he
heard her attacked. On the other hand, his will had been iron in the
matter of Lord Donald, whose exposure as co-respondent in the
particularly disreputable case had been lately filling the newspapers.
Mrs. Friend had seen Helena take up the _Times_ on one of the days on
which the evidence in this case had appear