done.

"And then, to improve matters, she refuses both of them!" went on Sir
Arthur despairingly. "What does she want? No one seems to please her."

"If we were in Spain, it would be very simple," mused Lady Cinnamond.
"She would go into religion."

Sir Arthur bristled up at once. "What, ma'am! a convent for my
daughter? I'd have you remember----"

His wife laughed, and patted his hand. "Calm yourself, my Arturo. No
well-regulated convent would keep a daughter of yours within its walls
for a day, nor would she care to stay there. Even Honour's romance
would not survive the actual experience. But since we are not in
Spain, we cannot hope to cure her fancies so quickly. Still----"

"Aye, romance--all romance!" growled Sir Arthur. "For your sake and
mine, my dear, I trust it may wear off soon, but I doubt it. What hope
is there of a girl who wears King Charles the First's hair in a locket?"

Sir Arthur's pessimism did not keep him from paying Honour a fatherly
compliment on her appearance that evening--a compliment accompanied,
however, as the jam by the powder, with the reminder that she might be
thankful if she ever arrived within measurable distance of her mother
in looks. Lady Cinnamond, in pink satin, with a black lace shawl
depending from a high jewelled comb at the back of her head in a manner
reminiscent of the mantilla of her youth, laughed at the assurance, and
hurried her party out to the elephant which was in waiting. The bridal
pair were inclined to be pensive, privately lamenting the waste of a
whole evening in public which might have been spent in a sweet
_solitude a deux_ on the verandah. Ostensibly out of consideration for
the ladies' dresses, Captain Cowper had suggested that he and his wife
should follow on a second elephant, but this was vetoed by his
father-in-law, who declared that they would, in pure absence of mind,
go for a moonlight ride through the city, and never arrive at the ball.
Thus, with jests and counter-jests, they reached the great _shamiana_,
erected for the occasion, and were swallowed up in an overwhelming
flood of scarlet and dark blue uniforms. When Honour took off her
wrap, her mother observed with vexation that they had both forgotten
the pearl necklace, but it did not occur to her that the girl's absence
of mind was due to the fact that she was nerving herself to a desperate
deed.

With the laudable idea of discouraging gossip by behaving as if nothing
unp