see how good an effect could be
produced by a costume which could have cost so little. Mr. Nightshade,
the famous tragedian, had been also asked to grace the feast, but the
early hour made the invitation a mockery. It was not to be supposed that
a man who went to bed at daybreak would get up again before the sun was
in the zenith, for the sake of Mr. Smithson's society, or Mr. Smithson's
Strasbourg pie, for the manufacture whereof a particular breed of geese
were supposed to be set apart, like sacred birds in Egypt, while a
particular vineyard in the Gironde was supposed to be devoted wholly and
solely to the production of Mr. Smithson's claret. It was a cabinet
wine, like those rare vintages of the Rhineland which are reserved
exclusively for German princes.

Breakfast was served in Mr. Smithson's smallest dining-room--there were
three apartments given up to feasting, beginning with a spacious
banqueting-room for great dinners, and dwindling down to this snuggery,
which held about a dozen comfortably, with ample room and verge enough
for the attendants. The walls were old gold silk, the curtains a tawny
velvet of deeper tone, the cabinets and buffet of dark Italian walnut,
inlaid with lapis-lazuli and amber. The fireplace was a masterpiece of
cabinet work, with high narrow shelves, and curious recesses holding
priceless jars of Oriental enamel. The deep hearth was filled with arum
lilies and azalias, like a font at Easter.

Lady Kirkbank, who pretended to adore genius, was affectionately
effusive to Miss Fitzherbert, the popular actress, but she rather
ignored the sister. Lesbia was less cordial, and was not enchanted at
finding that Miss Fitzherbert shone and sparkled at the breakfast table
by the gaiety of her spirits and the brightness of her conversation.
There was something frank and joyous, almost to childishness, in the
actress's manner, which was full of fascination; and Lesbia felt herself
at a disadvantage almost for the first time since she had been in
London.

The editor, the wit, the poet, the actress, had a language of their own;
and Lesbia felt herself out in the cold, unable to catch the ball as it
glanced past her, not quick enough to follow the wit that evoked those
ripples of silvery laughter from the two fair-haired, pale-faced girls
in sea-green cashmere. She felt as an Englishman may feel who has made
himself master of academical French, and who takes up one of Zola's
novels, or goes into artis