was shut in by a high wall from all chance of breezes. Occasionally she
lay and panted a little in her cot, and felt that when all the private
omnibuses, loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled away and
deposited their burdens at the various stations, life in town would be
rather lonely. Every one she knew would have gone somewhere, and
Mortimer Street in August was a melancholy thing.

And Lady Maria had actually invited her to Mallowe. What a piece of good
fortune-what an extraordinary piece of kindness!

She did not know what a source of entertainment she was to Lady Maria,
and how the shrewd, worldly old thing liked her. Lady Maria Bayne was
the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew
everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not
considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased
with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this
had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and
as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated.

Emily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to write notes for an hour every
evening. She had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, and put off
charities and dull people. She wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a
matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge of things. Lady Maria began to
depend on her and to find that she could be sent on errands and depended
on to do a number of things. Consequently, she was often at South Audley
Street, and once, when Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was
horribly frightened about herself, Emily was such a comfort to her that
she kept her for three weeks.

"The creature is so cheerful and perfectly free from vice that she's a