should she wear? how should she act? What if she made some absurd
blunder, betraying her plebeian birth and breeding? What if she
mortified her thin-skinned husband? Oh! why was it necessary to go at
all?

"My dear child," her husband said, kissing her good-humoredly, "it
isn't worth that despairing face. Just put on one of your pretty
dinner-dresses, a flower in your hair, and your pearls. Be your own
simple, natural, dear little self, and there will not be a lady at
Aunt Helena's able to shine you down."

And when an hour after, she descended, in a sweeping robe of silvery
blue, white lilies in her yellow hair, and pale pearls clasping her
slim throat, she looked fair as a dream.

Inez's black eyes flashed angrily as they fell upon her. Soap-boiler's
daughter she might be, with the blood of many Dobbs in her veins, but
no young peeress, born to the purple, ever looked more graceful, more
refined.

For Miss Catheron herself, she was quite bewildering in a dress of
dead white silk, soft laces and dashes of crimson about her as usual,
and rubies flashing here and there. She swept on to the carriage with
head held haughtily erect, a contemptuous smile on her lips, like
anything on earth but a jilted maiden.

Lady Helena's rooms were filled when they entered; not one invitation
had been declined. Society had mustered in fullest force to see Sir
Victor Catheron's low-born wife, to see how Miss Catheron bore her
humiliation. How would the one bear their scrutiny, the other their