sparkling, trembling ornaments, after putting her in her four-wheeled
cab, they used to go back to their kitchen and talk about her, and
wonder that some gentleman who wanted a handsome, stylish woman at the
head of his table, did not lay himself and his fortune at her feet.

"In the photograph-shops in Regent Street you see many a lady in a
coronet that hasn't half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp remarked
frequently. "She's got a nice complexion and a fine head of hair,
and--if you ask _me_--she's got as nice a pair of clear eyes as a lady
could have. Then look at her figure--her neck and her waist! That kind
of big long throat of hers would set off rows of pearls or diamonds
beautiful! She's a lady born, too, for all her simple, every-day way;
and she's a sweet creature, if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness
and good-nature I never saw her equal."

Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons as well as noble ones,--in fact,
those of the middle class were far more numerous than the duchesses,--so
it had been possible for her to do more than one good turn for the Cupp
household. She had got sewing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane Cupp
many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining-room floor had been occupied for
years by a young man Emily had been able to recommend. Her own
appreciation of good turns made her eager to do them for others. She
never let slip a chance to help any one in any way.

It was a good-natured thing done by one of her patrons who liked her,
which made her so radiant as she walked through the mud this morning.
She was inordinately fond of the country, and having had what she called
"a bad winter," she had not seen the remotest chance of getting out of
town at all during the summer months. The weather was beginning to be
unusually hot, and her small red room, which seemed so cosy in winter,