came in its place.

"She will be present, of course," he thought. "I wonder if I shall
find her as I left her last? She is not the kind that play fast and
loose, my stately, uplifted Lady Louise. How queenly she looked at the
reception last night in those velvet robes and the Carteret
diamonds!--'queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls.' She is my
elder by three round years at least, but she is stately as a princess,
and at twenty-five preserves the ripe bloom of eighteen. She is all
that is gracious when we meet, and my mother has set her heart upon the
match. I have half a mind to propose this very night."

She was an earl's daughter, this stately Lady Louise, but so very
impoverished an earl that the young Devonshire baronet, with his
ancient name and his long rent-roll, was a most desirably brilliant
match.

She was down on a visit to her brother, Lord Carteret, and had made a
dead set at Sir Everard Kingsland from the hour she had met him first.
He was on his way to Lord Carteret's now. There was a dinner-party,
and he was an honored guest; and Lady Louise was brilliant, in the
family diamonds and old point lace, once more.

She was in the drawing-room when he entered--her stately head regally
uplifted in the midst of a group of less magnificent demoiselles--a
statuesque blonde, with abundant ringlets of flaxen lightness, eyes of
turquoise blue, and a determined mouth and chin.

Sir Everard paid his respects to his host and hostess, and sought her
side at once.