ll for mine, Mrs. Carstairs asked sympathetically
if I had thought what I should like to do.

"Like to do?" I echoed, bitterly. "I should like to go home to the dear
old Abbey, and restore the place as it ought to be restored, and have
plenty of money, without lifting a finger to get it. What I _must_ do is
a different question."

"Well, then, my dear, supposing we put it in that brutal way. Have you
thought--er----"

"I've done nothing except think. But I've been brought up with about as
much earning capacity as a mechanical doll. The only thing I have the
slightest talent for being, is--a detective!"

"Good gracious!" was Mrs. Carstairs' comment on that.

"I've felt ever since spy night at the Abbey that I had it in me to make
a good detective," I modestly explained.

"'Princess di Miramare, Private Detective,' would be a distinctly
original sign-board over an office door," the old lady reflected. "But I
believe _I've_ evolved something more practical, considering your
name--and your age--(twenty-one, isn't it?)--and your _looks_. Not that
detective talent mayn't come in handy even in the profession I'm going
to suggest. Very likely it will--among other things. It's a profession
that'll call for all the talents you can get hold of."

"Do you by chance mean marriage?" I inquired, coldly. "I've never been a
wife. But I suppose I _am_ a sort of widow."

"If you weren't a sort of widow you couldn't cope with the profession
I've--er--invented. You wouldn't be independent enough."

"Invented? Then you _don't_ mean marriage! And not even the stage. I
warn you that I solemnly promised Grandmother never to go on the stage."

"I know, my child. She mentioned that to Henry--my husband--when they
were discussing your future, before you both left London. My idea is
_much_ more original than marriage, or even the stage. It popped into my
mind the night Mrs. Courtenaye died, while we were in a taxi between the
Palazzo Ardini and this hotel. I said to myself, 'Dear Elizabeth shall
be a Brightener!'"

"A Brightener?" I repeated, with a vague vision of polishing windows or
brasses. "I don't----"

"You wouldn't! I told you I'd invented the profession expressly for you.
Now I'm going to tell you what it is. I felt that you'd not care to be a
tame companion, even to the most gilded millionairess, or a social
secretary to a----"

"Horror!--no, I couldn't be a tame anything."

"That's why brightening is your line. A Brighte