eedful to attract to yourself the eye of the public, in the
catalogue, by calling your picture twenty lines of Tennyson. But when
the portrait goes down to posterity as a famous picture, it will figure
in the catalogue of the National Gallery as 'The Duchess, the Mirror,
and the Macaw.'"

"Bravo!" said the duchess, delighted. "You shall paint it, Dal, in time
for next year's Academy, and we will all go and see it."

And he did. And they all went. And when they saw it they said: "Ah, of
course! There it is; just as we saw it under the cedar at Overdene."

"Here comes Simmons with something on a salver," exclaimed the duchess.
"How that man waddles! Why can't somebody teach him to step out? Jane!
You march across this lawn like a grenadier. Can't you explain to
Simmons how it's done? ... Well? What is it? Ha! A telegram. Now what
horrible thing can have happened? Who would like to guess? I hope it is
not merely some idiot who has missed a train."

Amid a breathless and highly satisfactory silence, the duchess tore
open the orange envelope.

Apparently the shock was of a thorough, though not enjoyable, kind; for
the duchess, at all times highly coloured, became purple as she read,
and absolutely inarticulate with indignation. Jane rose quietly, looked
over her aunt's shoulder, read the long message, and returned to her
seat.

"Creature!" exclaimed the duchess, at last. "Oh, creature! This comes
of asking them as friends. And I had a lovely string of pearls for her,
worth far more than she would have been offered, professionally, for
one song. And to fail at the last minute! Oh, CREATURE!"

"Dear aunt," said Jane, "if poor Madame Velma has a sudden attack of
laryngitis, she could not possibly sing a note, even had the Queen
commanded her. Her telegram is full of regrets."

"Don't argue, Jane!" exclaimed the duchess, crossly. "And don't drag in
the Queen, who has nothing to do with my concert or Velma's throat. I
do abominate irrelevance, and you know it! WHY must she have her
what--do--you--call--it, just when she was coming to sing here? In my
young days people never had these new-fangled complaints. I have no
patience with all this appendicitis and what not--cutting people open
at every possible excuse. In my young days we called it a good
old-fashioned stomach-ache, and gave them Turkey rhubarb!"

Myra Ingleby hid her face behind her garden hat; and Garth Dalmain
whispered to Jane: "I do abominate irrelevance,