her presence, and of cowardly silence in her absence when
she chanced to be under discussion.

But of men friends she had many, especially among a set of young
fellows just through college, of whom she made particular chums; nice
lads, who wrote to her of their college and mess-room scrapes, as they
would never have dreamed of doing to their own mothers. She knew
perfectly well that they called her "old Jane" and "pretty Jane" and
"dearest Jane" amongst themselves, but she believed in the harmlessness
of their fun and the genuineness of their affection, and gave them a
generous amount of her own in return.

Jane Champion happened just now to be paying one of her long visits to
Overdene, and was playing golf with a boy for whom she had long had a
rod in pickle on this summer afternoon when the duchess went to cut
blooms in her rose-garden. Only, as Jane found out, you cannot
decorously lead up to a scolding if you are very keen on golf, and go
golfing with a person who is equally enthusiastic, and who all the way
to the links explains exactly how he played every hole the last time he
went round, and all the way back gloats over, in retrospection, the way
you and he have played every hole this time.

So Jane considered her afternoon, didactically, a failure. But, in the
smoking-room that night, young Cathcart explained the game all over
again to a few choice spirits, and then remarked: "Old Jane was superb!
Fancy! Such a drive as that, and doing number seven in three and not
talking about it! I've jolly well made up my mind to send no more
bouquets to Tou-Tou. Hang it, boys! You can't see yourself at champagne
suppers with a dancing-woman, when you've walked round the links, on a
day like this, with the Honourable Jane. She drives like a rifle shot,
and when she lofts, you'd think the ball was a swallow; and beat me
three holes up and never mentioned it. By Jove, a fellow wants to have
a clean bill when he shakes hands with her!"

CHAPTER III

THE SURPRISE PACKET

The sun-dial pointed to half past four o'clock. The hour of silence
appeared to be over. The birds commenced twittering; and a cuckoo, in
an adjacent wood, sounded his note at intervals.

The house awoke to sudden life. There was an opening and shutting of
doors. Two footmen, in the mulberry and silver of the Meldrum livery,
hurried down from the terrace, carrying folding tea-tables, with which
they supplemented those of rustic oak standing perma