tent of it, but had taken for granted that Lady Maulevrier
was rich. Would three thousand pounds make a great inroad on that
income? Would it be a year's income?--half a year's? Lesbia had no idea.
Life at Fellside was carried on in an elegant manner--with considerable
luxury in house and garden--a luxury of flowers, a lavish expenditure of
labour. Yet the expenditure of Lady Maulevrier's existence, spent always
on the same spot, must be as nothing to the money spent in such a life
as Lady Kirkbank's, which involved the keeping up of three or four
houses, and costly journeys to and fro, and incessant change of attire.

No doubt Lady Maulevrier had saved money; yes, she must have saved
thousands during her long seclusion, Lesbia argued. Her grandmother had
told her that she was to look upon herself as an heiress. This could
only mean that Lady Maulevrier had a fortune to leave her; and this
being so, what could it matter if she had anticipated some of her
portion? And yet there was in her heart of hearts a terrible fear of
that stern dowager, of the cold scorn in those splendid eyes when she
should stand revealed in all her foolishness, her selfish, mindless,
vain extravagances. She, who had never been reproved, shrank with a
sickly dread from the idea of reproof. And to be told that her career as
a fashionable beauty had been a failure! That would be the bitterest
pang of all.

Soon came luncheon, and Heidseck, and then an afternoon which was gayer
than the morning had been, inasmuch as every one babbled and laughed
more after luncheon. And then there was five o'clock tea on deck, under
the striped Japanese awning, to the jingle of banjos, enlivened by the
wit of black-faced minstrels, amidst wherries and canoes and gondolas,
and ponderous houseboats, and snorting launches, crowding the sides of
the sunlit river, in full view of the crowd yonder in front of the Red
Lion, and here on this nearer bank, and all along either shore, fringing
the green meadows with a gaudy border of smartly-dressed humanity.

It was a gay scene, and Lesbia gave herself up to the amusement of the
hour, and talked and chaffed as she had learned to talk and chaff in one
brief season, holding her own against all comers.

Rood Hall looked lovely when they went back to it in the gloaming, an
Elizabethan pile crowned with towers. The four wings with their conical
roofs, the massive projecting windows, grey stone, ruddy brickwork,
lattices reflect