it's rather like
eating "funeral baked meats."

Mrs. Senter is exactly what she was some years ago. Perhaps it would be
ungallant to recall to your memory just _how_ many years ago. She is, if
anything, younger. I believe there's a maxim, "Once a duchess, always a
duchess." I think women of to-day have another: "Once thirty, always
thirty"; or, "Once thirty, always twenty-nine." But, joking apart, she
is a very agreeable and rather witty woman, sympathetic too, apparently,
though I believe you used to think, when she was out smiting hearts at
our Back o' Beyond, that in nature she somewhat resembled a certain
animal worshipped by the Egyptians and feared by mice. She seems very
fond of her nephew Dick, with whom she says she goes about a good deal.
"We chaperon each other," she expressed it. She pities me for my fire at
Graylees, but envies me my motoring trip.

We shall be off in a few days, now, I hope, as soon as Ellaline has been
shown a few "features" of London. I went to see the car to-day, and she
is a beauty. I shall try her for the first time to-morrow.

Ever Yours,

Pen.

VII

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

_Ritz Hotel, London_,
_July 9th_

One and Only Compleat Mother: Things have happened. I felt them
coming in my bones--_not_ my funny-bones this time. For the things may
turn out to be not at all funny.

Mr. Richard Burden has been introduced to the alleged Miss Lethbridge. I
wonder if he _can_ know she is merely "the alleged"? He is certainly
changed, somehow, both in his manner, and in his _way of looking at
one_. I thought in Paris he hadn't at all a bad face, though rather
impudent--and besides, even Man is a fellow being! But last night, for a
minute, he really had an incredibly wicked expression; or else he was
suppressing a sneeze. I couldn't be quite sure which--as you said about
Aubrey Beardsley's weird black-and-white women.

It was at a restaurant--a piteous restaurant, where the waiters looked
like enchanted waiters in the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty. He--Mr.
Dicky Burden--came in, with an aunt. Such an aunt! I could never be at
home with her as an aunt if I were a grown-up man, though she might make
a bewitching cousin. She's quite beautiful, dear, and graceful; but I
don't like her at all. I think Sir Lionel does, though. They knew each
other in Bengal, and she kept saying to him in a cooing voice, "_Do_ you
remember?"

You can see she's too clever to be _always_ clever