uested him to ask Miss
Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with
one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are
they not?'

Canon Wrottesley felt that mixed sensation which association with Mrs.
Ogilvie always gave him--a feeling of resentment combined with a desire
to please. He rather hastily let the mantle of the seer drop from him,
and said, 'I wish our little party were not so much dispersed. Mr.
Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming friends with him, and they
much hoped to have been here to meet you. Falconer is their name--Sir
John and Lady Falconer. He has just been made Minister at Buenos
Ayres, as I dare say you know, and he told me they once had the
pleasure of meeting you in Spain, years and years ago.'

'I never remember people whom I have met years and years ago,' said
Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting
slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke,
and the heavy lids closed lazily upon them.

Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea-table and greeted Mrs.
Ogilvie with evident pleasure. 'I am afraid you will hardly remember
me, as it is a very long time since we met,' she said; 'but my husband
and I always remember how good you were to me when I was ill at Juarez.'

Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a cordiality that was charmingly
expressed. Her eyes were no longer half-closed, and her colour never
varied. 'You were ill, were you not?' she said, in a manner that was a
little vague but polite and sympathetic.

'Yes,' said Sir John, 'and you let your maid come and nurse her. My
wife always said she would have died if it had not been for you.'

'The climate was abominable,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'every one felt ill
there. Why does one go to these out-of-the-way places?'

'It is very absurd,' said Lady Falconer, in a friendly way, 'to be
surprised at people growing up; yet I can hardly realize that Captain
Ogilvie, whom we met to-day, is the little boy who was with you at
Juarez. How time flies!'

'It more often crawls, I think,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, with her
mouth a little twisted to one side. And then she rose to go because
she never stayed long at any party, and not even the fact that Nigel
Christopherson was going to ride in the last race altered her decision.
At parting she was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that if
ever she cared to see a collecti