o breakfast with Mr. Smithson, and although Lesbia
had questioned whether it was worth while crossing Piccadilly to eat
one's breakfast, she had subsequently considered it worth while ordering
a new gown from Seraphine for the occasion; or, it may be, rather that
the breakfast made a plausible excuse for a new gown, the pleasure of
ordering which was one of those joys of a London life that had not yet
lost their savour.

The gown, devised especially for the early morning, was simplicity
itself--rusticity, even. It was a Dresden shepherdess gown, made of a
soft flowered stuff, with roses and forget-me-nots on a creamy ground.
There was a great deal of creamy lace, and innumerable yards of palest
azure and palest rose ribbon in the confection, and there was a
coquettish little hat, the regular Dresden hat, with a wreath of
rosebuds.

'Dresden china incarnate!' exclaimed Smithson, as he welcomed Lady
Lesbia on the threshold of his marble hall, under the glass marquise
which sheltered arrivals at his door. 'Why do you make yourself so
lovely? I shall want to keep you in one of my Louis Seize cabinets, with
the rest of my Dresden!'

Lady Kirkbank had considered the occasion suitable for one of her
favourite cotton frocks and rustic hats--a Leghorn hat, with clusters Of
dog-roses and honeysuckle, and a trail of the same hedge-flowers to
fasten her muslin fichu.

Mr. Smithson's house in Park Lane was simply perfect. It is wonderful
what good use a _parvenu_ can make of his money nowadays, and how rarely
he disgraces himself by any marked offences against good taste. There
are so many people at hand to teach the _parvenu_ how to furnish his
house, or how to choose his stud. If he go wrong it must be by sheer
perversity, an arrogant insistence upon being governed by his own
ignorant inclinations.

Mr. Smithson was too good a tactician to go wrong in this way. He had
taken the trouble to study the market before he went out to buy his
goods. He knew that taste and knowledge were to be bought just as easily
as chairs and tables, and he went to the right shop. He employed a
clever Scotchman, an artist in domestic furniture, to plan his house,
and make drawings for the decoration and furniture of every room--and
for six months he gave himself up to the task of furnishing.

Money was spent like water. Painters, decorators, cabinet-makers had a
merry time of it. Royal Academicians were impressed into the service by
large offers