The Awkward Age

s a gathered garden lily, her admirable training appeared to hold her out to them all as with precautionary finger-tips. She presumed, however, so little

rginity. She might have been prepared for her visit by a cluster of doting nuns, cloistered daughters of ancient houses and educators of similar products, whose taste, hereditarily good, had grown, out of the world and most delightfully, so queer as to leave on everything they touched a particular shade of distinction. The Duchess had brought in with the child an air of added confidence for which an observer would in a moment have seen the grounds, the association of the pair being so markedly favourable to each. Its younger member carried out the style of her aunt's presence quite as

mind explaining to me an opinion I've just h

dy, Mr. Mitchett, to defend my opinions; but if it's a question of going much into the things that are

, "could be better than the present-but if you've reasons for wanti

s, Mitchy!-he does go at it, doesn't he, Mrs. Brook? What do you want to do in anoth

umour of the case. "Well, Petherton, of 'those'?-I def

them somewhere your first idea is not quite to jump at a pretext for getting off some

exclaimed at this, but o

happen to be sure that nothing would really induce Jane to leave Aggie five minu

earth MIGHT we arrive at in the absence of your control? I warn you, Duchess," he joyousl

es that her look might have expressed the modest detachment of a person to whom the language of her companions was unknown. Her protectress then glanced round the circle. "You're very odd people all of you, and I don't think you quite know h

wing you aside just now, expose your niece to anything that might immediately oblige Mrs. Brook to catch her up and flee with her. But th

now?-by my neglect. I wouldn't say anything about you that I can't bravely say TO you; therefore since he has plumpe

ion?" Edward Brookenham put the ques

ecidedly too many things on which we don't feel alike. You're all inconceivable just now. Je ne peux pourtant pas la mettre a la porte, cette cherie"-whom

g must be all right!-What I spoke of to poor Mitchy," she went on to the Duchess, "is the dreadful view you take of my letting Nanda go to Tishy-and indeed of the general question of any acquaintance between young unmarried and young married females. Mr. Mitchett's sufficiently interested in us, Jane, to make it natural of me to take him into our confidence in one of our difficulties. On the other hand we feel your solicitude, and I needn't tell you at this time of day what weight in every respect we attach to your judgement. Therefore it WILL be a difficult

ed to hear. This visitor, a young woman of striking, of startling appearance, who, in the manner of certain shiny house-doors and railings, instantly created a presumption of the lurking label "Fresh paint," found herself, with an embarrassment oddly opposed to the positive pitch of her complexion, in the presence of a group in which it was yet immediately evident that every one was a friend. Every one, to show no one had been caught, said something extremely easy; so that it was after a moment only poor Mrs. Donner who, seated close to her hostess, seemed to be in any degree in the wrong. This moreover was essentially her fault, so extreme was the anomaly of her having, without

all right-she's fright

the suitable, the harmony of parts-what on earth were you doomed to do that, to be punished sufficiently in advance, you had to be deprived of it in your very cradles? Look at her little black dress-rather good, but not so good as it ought to be, and, mixed

stion of vice in regard to that charming child, who looks like one of the new-fashioned bill-posters, only, in the way of 'morbid modernity,' as Mrs. Brook would say, more extravagant and funny than any that have yet been risked

"What did you mean just now, really, by asking me to explain before Aggie this so serious matter of Nanda's exposure?" The

sound had passed between them. Aggie's little manner was too developed to show, and her host's not developed enough. "Oh he's awfully careful," Lord Petherton

e Duchess asked. "That's a pretty picture of him, inasmuch as f

f by the same token I'm 'horrible,' as you call me," he pursued, "it's only because I'm in everyway so beastly superficial. All the same I do sometimes go into things,

a little to indulgence. "Pray on what ground of right,

lt pulled up. "Do you mean that when a girl li

nate creature; and I don't quite as yet see-though I dare say I shall soon make out!-what our friend has in her head in tattling to you on these matters as soon as my bac

er was brisk and impatient, but evidently quite as si

Duchess alludes to is my poor sister Fanny's stupid grievance-surely you know about that." He made oddly vivid for a moment the nature of his relative's allegation, his somewhat cynical treatment of which became peculiarly derisive in the light of the attitude and expression, at that minute, of the figure incriminated. "My brother-in-law's too thick with her. But Cashmore's such a fine old ass. It's excessively unpleasant

grant you it's inconceivable that the husband of a superb creature like your sister should find his requirements better met by an object comme cette petite, who looks like a pen-wiper-an actress's idea of one-made up for a theatrical bazaar. At the same time, if you'll al

mean by that her being the biggest fool alive I'm quite ready to agree with you. It's e

of dirty linen? There's not the least necessity to 'say'!" she laughed. "If there's anything more remarkable than th

. We can never, dear Duchess, take too many lessons, and there's probably at the present time no more useful func

ate a sense of comfort," Lord Petherton pursued, "in the good relations now more and more established between poor Fanny and Mrs. Brook. Mrs. Brook's awfully kind to her and awfully sharp, and Fanny wil

of THAT resource!" the D

astly hypocrisy makes her sick. There are people," he pleasantly rambled on, "who are awfully free wi

an't know the dear soul, of course, without knowing that she has set up, for the convenience of her fr

ried Lord Petherton, "that s

et your account," the Duchess returned. "Of course we know

in the act of receiving. "Lady Fanny Cashmore!"-the butler was already in the field, and the company, with the exception of Mrs. Donner, wh