n that always means mischief.

She throws herself back in her chair, and a tiny frown settles upon
her brow. She is such a small creation of Nature's that only a frown
of the slightest dimensions _could_ settle itself comfortably
between her eyes. Still, as a frown, it is worth a good deal! It has
cowed a good many people in its day, and had, indeed, helped to make
her a widow at an early age. Very few people stood up against Lady
Rylton's tempers, and those who did never came off quite unscathed.

"Absurd! Have I been absurd?" asks Mrs. Bethune. "My dear
Tessie"--she is Lady Rylton's niece, but Lady Rylton objects to
being called aunt--"such a sin has seldom been laid to my charge."

"Well, _I_ lay it," says Lady Rylton with some emphasis.

She leans back in her chair, and, once again unfurling the huge
black fan she carries, waves it to and fro.

Marian Bethune leans back in her chair too, and regards her aunt
with a gaze that never wavers. The two poses are in their way
perfect, but it must be confessed that the palm goes to the younger
woman.

It might well have been otherwise, as Lady Rylton is still, even at
forty-six, a very graceful woman. Small--very small--a sort of
pocket Venus as it were, but so carefully preserved that at
forty-six she might easily be called thirty-five. If it were not for
her one child, the present Sir Maurice Rylton, this fallacy might
have been carried through. But, unfortunately, Sir Maurice is now
twenty-eight by the church register. Lady Rylton hates church
registers; they tell so much; and truth is always so rude!

She is very fair. Her blue eyes have still retained their azure
tint--a strange thing at her age. Her little hands and feet are as
tiny now as when years ago they called all London town to look at
them on her presentation to her Majesty. She has indeed a charming
face, a slight figure, and a temper that would shame the devil.

It isn't a quick temper--one can forgive that. It is a temper that
remembers--remembers always, and that in a mild, ladylike sort of
way destroys the one it fastens upon. Yet she is a dainty creature;
fragile, fair, and pretty, even now. It is generally in these
dainty, pretty, soulless creatures that the bitterest venom of all
is to be found.

Her companion is different. Marian Bethune is a tall woman, with a
face not perhaps strictly handsome, but yet full of a beautiful
_diablerie_ that raises it above mere comeliness. Her hair is red--