“We shan’t have to wear a stitch underneath,” Lady Betty announced decidedly, while she pirouetted before a cheval glass—­they were all in Lady Anningford’s room—­with some stuff draped round her childish form.  “The gowns must have the right look, just long, straight things, with hanging sleeves and perhaps a girdle.  I shall have cream, and you, Mary, as Elaine, must have white; but Emily had better have that mauve for Enid, as she was married.”

“Why must Enid have mauve because she is married?” asked Emily, who did not like the color.

“I don’t know why,” Lady Betty answered, “except that, if you are married, you can’t possibly have white, like Mary and me, who aren’t.  People are quite different—­after, and mauve is very respectable for them,” she went on.  Grammar never troubled her little ladyship, when giving her valuable opinion upon things and life.

“I think Enid was a goose,” said Emily, pouting.

“Not half as much as Elaine,” said Mary.  “She had secured her Geraint, whereas Elaine made a perfect donkey of herself over Lancelot, who did not care for her.”

“I like our parts much the best, Lily’s and mine,” said Lady Betty.  “I do give my Jim—­Gareth?—­a lively time, at all events!  Just what I should do, if it were in real life.”

“What you do do, you mean, not what you would do, Minx!” said her aunt, laughing.

And at this stage the shooters were seen advancing across the park, and the band of ladies, full of importance, descended to luncheon.

Lady Anningford sat next the Crow and told him what they had decided, in strict confidence, of course.

“We shall have the most delightful fun, Crow.  I have thought it all out.  At dessert I am going to hand one of the gold cups in which we are going to put a glass of some of the Duke’s original old Chartreuse, to the bridal pair, as if to drink their health; and then, when they have drunk it, I am going to be overcome at the mistake of having given them a love-potion, just as in the real story!  You can’t tell—­it may bring them together.”

“Queen Anne, you wonder!” said the Crow.

“It is such a deliciously incongruous idea, you see,” Lady Anningford went on.  “All of us in long pre-mediaeval garments, with floating hair, and all of you in modern hunt coats!  I should like to have seen Tristram in gold chain armor.”

The Crow grunted approval.

“Ethelrida is going to arrange that they go in to dinner together.  She is going to say it will be their last chance before they get to King Mark.  Won’t it all be perfect?”

“Well, I suppose you know best,” the Crow said, with his wise old head on one side.  “But they are at a ticklish pass in their careers, I tell you.  The balance might go either way.  Don’t make it too hard for them, out of mistaken kindness.”

“You are tiresome, Crow!” retorted Lady Anningford.  “I never can do a thing I think right without your warning me over it.  Do leave it to me.”