society, and he urged his friend strongly to enlighten Lady Maulevrier
as to the kind of circle into which she was about to entrust her young
granddaughter, a girl brought up in the Arcadia of England.

'Not for worlds would I undertake such a task,' said Maulevrier. 'Her
ladyship never had any opinion of my wisdom, and this Lady Kirkbank is a
friend of her own youth. She would cut up rough if I were to say a word
against an old friend. Besides what's the odds, if you come to think of
it? all society is fast nowadays, or at any rate all society worth
living in. And then again, Lesbia is just one of those cool-headed girls
who would keep herself head uppermost in a maelstrom. She knows on which
side her bread is buttered. Look how easily she chucked you up because
she did not think you good enough. She'll make use of this Lady
Kirkbank, who is a good soul, I am told, and will make the best match of
the season.'

And now the season had begun, and Lady Lesbia Haselden was circulating
with other aristocratic atoms in the social vortex, with her head
apparently uppermost.

'Old Lady K--has nobbled a real beauty, this time,' said one of the
Arlington Street set to his friend as they lolled on the railings in the
park, 'a long way above any of those plain-headed ones she tried to palm
off upon us last year: the South American girl with the big eyes and a
complexion like a toad, the Forfarshire girl with freckles and
unsophisticated carrots. "Those lovely Spanish eyes," said Lady K----,
"that Titianesque auburn hair!" But it didn't answer. Both the girls
were plain, and they have gone back to their native obscurity spinsters
still. But this is a real thorough-bred one--blood, form, pace, all
there.'