my mind there never was and never will be any artificial light to equal
that of wax candles in sufficient quantity. The company was large; I
think thirty sat down to dinner that night, which was given to introduce
Lord Ragnall's future wife to the neighbourhood, whereof she was
destined to be the leader.

Miss Manners, who was looking very happy and charming in her jewels and
fine clothes, joined us at once, and informed Scroope that "she" was
just coming; the maid in the cloakroom had told her so.

"Is she?" replied Scroope indifferently. "Well, so long as you have come
I don't care about anyone else."

Then he told her she was looking beautiful, and stared at her with such
affection that I fell back a step or two and contemplated a picture of
Judith vigorously engaged in cutting off the head of Holofernes.

Presently the large door at the end of the room was thrown open and the
immaculate Savage, who was acting as a kind of master of the ceremonies,
announced in well-bred but penetrating tones, "Lady Longden and the
Honourable Miss Holmes." I stared, like everybody else, but for a while
her ladyship filled my eye. She was an ample and, to my mind, rather
awful-looking person, clad in black satin--she was a widow--and very
large diamonds. Her hair was white, her nose was hooked, her dark eyes
were penetrating, and she had a bad cold in her head. That was all I
found time to notice about her, for suddenly her daughter came into my
line of vision.

Truly she was a lovely girl, or rather, young woman, for she must
have been two or three-and-twenty. Not very tall, her proportions were