up to politics, and was no doubt a prig. Lady Kirkbank spoke of
him with contempt, as an intolerable person. But then Lord Hartfield was
not in Lady Kirkbank's set. He belonged to that serious circle to which
Lady Kirkbank's house appeared about as reputable a place of gathering
as a booth on a race-course.

And now Lady Kirkbank told Lesbia that this Mr. Smithson, a nobody with
a great fortune, was a man whose addresses she, the sister of Lord
Maulevrier, ought to welcome. Mr. Smithson, who claimed to be a lineal
descendant of that Sir Michael Carrington, standard-bearer to Coeur de
Lion in the Holy Land, whose descendants changed their name to Smith
during the Wars of the Roses. Mr. Smithson bodily proclaimed himself a
scion of this good old county family, and bore on his plate and his
coach panels the elephant's head and the three demi-griffins of the
Hertfordshire Smiths, who only smiled and shrugged their shoulders when
they were complimented upon the splendid surroundings of their cousin.
Who could tell? Some lateral branch of the standard-bearer's family tree
might have borne this illustrious twig.

Lady Kirkbank and all Lady Kirkbank's friends seemed to have conspired
to teach Lesbia Haselden one lesson, and that lesson meant that money
was the first prize in the great game of life. Money ranked before
everything--before titles, before noble lineage, genius, fame, beauty,
courage, honour. Money was Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
Mr. Smithson, whose antecedents were as cloudy as those of Aphrodite,
was a greater man than a peer whose broad acres only brought him two per
cent., or half of whose farms were tenantless, and his fields growing
cockle instead of barley.

Yes, one by one, Lady Lesbia's illusions were reft from her. A year ago
she had fancied beauty all-powerful, a gift which must ensure to its
possessor dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. Rank, intellect,
fame would bow down before that magical diadem. And, behold, she had
been shining upon London society for seven weeks, and only empty heads
and empty pockets had bowed down--the frivolous, the ineligible,--and
Mr. Smithson.

Another illusion which had been dispelled was Lesbia's comfortable idea
of her own expectations. Her grandmother had told her that she might
take rank among heiresses; and she had held herself accordingly, deeming
that her place was among the wealthiest. And now, since Mr. Smithson's
appearance upon the sc