ike to have a squint at her."

"Very well. You shall."

"Pimpernel," repeated Lord Holme, in a loud bass voice, as he lounged
out of the room, grinning. The name tickled his fancy immensely. That
was evident.

Lady Holme fully intended to ask Miss Schley to the "something" already
mentioned immediately. But somehow several days slipped by and it was
difficult to find an unoccupied hour. The Holme cards had, of course,
duly gone to the Carlton, but there the matter had ended, so far as Lady
Holme was concerned. Miss Schley, however, was not so heedless as the
woman she resembled. She began to return with some assiduity to the
practice of the talent of the old Philadelphia days. In those days she
used to do a "turn" in the course of which she imitated some of the
popular public favourites of the States, and for each of her imitations
she made up to resemble the person mimicked. She now concentrated
this talent upon Lady Holme, but naturally the methods she employed in
Society were far more subtle than those she had formerly used upon
the stage. They were scarcely less effective. She slightly changed her
fashion of doing her hair, puffing it out less at the sides, wearing
it a little higher at the back. The change accentuated her physical
resemblance to Lady Holme. She happened to get the name of the
dressmaker who made most of the latter's gowns, and happened to give her
an order that was executed with remarkable rapidity. But all this was
only the foundation upon which she based, as it were, the structure of
her delicate revenge.

That consisted in a really admirable hint--it could not be called
more--of Lady Holme's characteristic mannerisms.

Lady Holme was not an affected woman, but, like all women of the world
who are greatly admired and much talked about, she had certain little
ways of looking, moving, speaking, being quiet, certain little habits
of laughter, of gravity, that were her own property. Perhaps originally
natural to her, they had become slightly accentuated as time went on,
and many tongues and eyes admired them. That which had been unconscious
had become conscious. The faraway look came a little more abruptly, went
a little more reluctantly; than it had in the young girl's days. The
wistful smile lingered more often on the lips of the twenties than on
the lips of the teens. Few noticed any change, perhaps, but there had
been a slight change, and it made things easier for Miss Schley.

Her eye was