useless) will save the author's credit by proving that wheels do not go
round, he will be very much obliged--and will offer her every facility.

THE LADY OF THE POOL

CHAPTER I

A FIRM BELIEVER

"I see Mr. Vansittart Merceron's at the Court again, mamma."

"Yes, dear. Lady Merceron told me he was coming. She wanted to consult
him about Charlie."

"She's always consulting him about Charlie, and it never makes any
difference."

Mrs. Bushell looked up from her needlework; her hands were full with
needle and stuff, and a couple of pins protruded from her lips. She
glanced at her daughter, who stood by the window in the bright blaze of
a brilliant sunset, listlessly hitting the blind-cord and its tassel to
and fro.

"The poor boy's very young still," mumbled Mrs. Bushell through her
pins.

"He's twenty-five last month," returned Millicent. "I know, because
there's exactly three years between him and me."

The sinking rays defined Miss Bushell's form with wonderful clearness.
She was very tall, and the severe well-cut cloth gown she wore set off
the stately lines of her figure. She had a great quantity of fair hair
and a handsome face, spoilt somewhat by a slightly excessive breadth
across the cheeks; as her height demanded or excused, her hands and
feet were not small, though well shaped. Would Time have arrested his
march for ever, there would have been small fault to find with Nature's
gifts to Miss Bushell; but, as her mother said, Millie was just what
she had been at twenty-one; and Mrs. Bushell was now extremely stout.
Millie escaped the inference by discrediting her mother's recollection.

The young lady wore her hat, and presently she turned away from the
window, remarking:

"I think I shall go for a stroll. I've had no exercise to-day."

Either inclination, or perhaps that threatening possibility from which
she strove to avert her eyes, made Millie a devotee of active pursuits.
She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside,
golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the
high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to
counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her
manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression)
suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar
acknowledged in her an invaluable assistant. By a strange coincidence
she seemed to suit the house she live