The Admiral's Daughter

had looked (not without a thrill of delight and fear blended) for an immediate plunge into the excitements of the capital. Instead, she

h her niece before her coach was announced to carry her to court. She came home late in the day with the news that change of air was prescribed by the royal physician, and on Friday the Queen's household must move to Hampton Court; and should that atmosphere not prove beneficial, they might go yet further, to Tunbridge or Bath. Lady Fairfax had risked the displeasure of her august mist

quirers visiting the house in Kensington or seeing her abroad, Lady Fairfax smilingly said that her niece had had a trying journey, and must have her beauty sleep—several days' beauty sleep, in fact (during which time it was decreed that my lady's tailor and sempstress should be hard driven). No word of this was hinted to Marion. She accepted the fact of her aunt's duties at Court as an ordinary event, and spent her time wandering about

d for the young lady under his roo

shall not till she be dressed. Romaine is altering a gown for everyday usage,' the lady went on, 'and then as soon as Her Majesty's malaise allows her to free me, we will have a few visitors some quiet night that I may see how she dances. Young Beckenham will not be sorry of the chance, and Sampson, I'll be bound, for all his

She'll think that nothing matters but fal-lals. And she is too much alone. Can't Her Majesty

to-night, but Monday (Her Majesty has promised me Monday) our little niece shall go to the play. She shall wear her white muslin

is wife in despair,

a fine general. You lose no chances. You make ever

nion, 'will agree that she cannot walk into

ising to bestir herself once in a decade—and not, as is her present habit, setting a new step every year, and making her followers miserable if they fall behind in the march. A ball dress was a veritable 'creation,' made with infinite pains and pride, every stitch carefully put in, the embroid

nt an urgent call, came early on the second day after Marion's arrival. Indeed Marion's eyes had watched her aunt narrowly, and the kind

lf to remark, 'where is your mother's lilac embro

and her father were being found blameworthy, 'and—I don't th

fair lady of Garth in that one winter when she flitted acros

have not smelt so great a sweetness, Mademoiselle, since I was a small litt

all sorts of flowers specially for them. I cannot make them near so well. Mistress Trevannion says my mother was very beautif

brown head. Marion at the moment was busying herself w

st hurry, just when Curnow was fastening the boxes. If I had not known his ways, I should ha

oidered silk, worked in cream and gold, on a cream ground, with a straying t

of when you would be grown, just before she died,

said the Frenchwoman as she examined the le

n she glanced at the script again, and in spit

r bodice? I'll warrant my brother is firmly of the idea he has given

a casket with a velvet lining. Curled in the folds

tood spe

re wear that!' sh

ed smile, was turning the

h a soup?on of the blue of these turquoises. Let it be designed'—she went off into a string of technicalities. 'You will get Master Bingon

olely for les beaux yeux of Mademoiselle,'

the small chamber next to Mademoiselle, and stitch at her flounces an

nt Constance. I will even wear the sort of stays you wish.

eyed her own beautiful figure

in the Frenchwoman, 'il fa

er aunt smile. 'Mademoiselle de Delauret wears hard stays, and she suffers greatly sometimes, but I have ne

ntered. He spoke to his mistress, who

iments, and may he have the pleasure of waiting on your la

ou what to say sh

my lady, a

say it

e a deep obeisan

her own house Lady Fairfax had just requested. Simone, it appeared, had been found many years ago on a doorstep in the city—in Crutched Friars—by the Frenchwoman on her way home from a client's house. The sempstress had been minded to pass by—there are

ed, with her reason. She had babbled of strange things sometimes, but the memory of her childhood seemed to have fallen off, with all the hair from her head, during her illness. 'She is one

ut spare us her history. Seven days and nights you have. 'Tis not wise to waste an hour talking of people who do not matter in the least. Marion, my dear,' Lady Fairfax swung round, 'take warning by Romaine, and if ever you find yourse

departed. She counted it one of her great

's, and when that young lady was not engaged with her aunt or uncle, or the stray visitors she was all

ould fall, found without a second's hesitation the one spot to place a rose. And when Marion, seeing herself stumble in these paths so easily tripped by the little French feet, was minded to voice her discontent with herself, Simone would r

esses. Sometimes Marion would take a needle and help her, and they talked of London, Simone offering crumbs for Marion's hungering curiosity of the ways of this new world. Always when she entered the little

rion on one or two occasions, 'that li

s way of wearing her own simply made gowns: a new spectacle this, for Elise's dresses had never been simple. And the grave rebuke in

ot big feet'—she complacently surveyed her projected slipper—'but when Simone walks across a room I think I have. I did not think

d embrace, 'you are finding your feet. Neve

ents no matter in what company she found herself; something in the way she entered a thronged room on some errand, spoke to her young mistress and went out again; something in the restraint of her speech and the subtle charm of her low soft voice, that made Lady Fairfax congratulate herself again and again on the waiting woman she had found for her niece. And it was a matter of sincere regret in t

to find time to divide her care between two mistresses, and visito

the theatre filled with people of fashion, she shrank back in uttermost confusion. Her aunt, serenely surveying the house, nodding to acquaintances and smiling at the stiff backs of her honest enemies, was forgetful for the moment of her niece's predicament. But the gentleman at the rear of the box came to

ded as the stage, she gave herself up to the pleasure of her first play. She did not know that her laugh rose here and there the first in the house; she was totally unaware of the horror in her face when the villain of the piece unmasked his villainy. When a duel came to be fought, and swords gleamed out, she half tu

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