Lord Twemlow shook his head ruefully.  “Heaven knows how it will end,” he said, “or if it is but a new impudent prank—­or what she will do next—­but the whole country is agog with the story.  She bade her father invite his rapscallion crew to her birthnight supper, and says ’tis that they may see her in breeches for the last time, for she will wear them no more, but begin to live a sober, godly, and virtuous life and keep a Chaplain of her own.  And on the twenty-fourth night of November, she turning fifteen, they gather prepared for sport, and find her attired like a young prince, in pink satin coat and lace ruffles and diamond buckles and powder; more impudent and handsome than since she was born.  And when the drinking sets in heavily, upon her chair she springs and stands laughing at the company of them.

“‘Look your last on my fine shape,’ she cries, ’for after to-night you’ll see no more of it.  From this I am a fine lady,’ and sings a song and drinks a toast and breaks her glass on the floor and runs away.”

At a certain period of my Lord Twemlow’s first story, the night he told it, both his Lordship of Dunstanwolde and the then Marquess of Roxholm had made unconscious movements as they heard—­this had happened when had been described the falling of the mantle of black hair and the little oaths with which Mistress Clorinda had sat on her hunter binding it up—­and at this point—­at this other picture of the audacious beauty and her broken glass each man almost started again—­my Lord Dunstanwolde indeed suddenly rising and taking a step across the hearth.

“What a story,” he said.  “On my soul!”

“And ’tis not the end!” cried Lord Twemlow.  “An hour she leaves them talking of her, wondering what she plans to do, and then the door is flung wide open and there she stands—­splendid in crimson and silver and jewels, with a diadem on her head, and servants holding lights flaming above her.”

My Lord Dunstanwolde turned about and looked at him as if the movement was involuntary, and Lord Twemlow ended with a blow upon the table, his elderly face aflame with appreciation of the dramatic thing he told.

“And makes them a great Court courtesy,” he cried, his voice growing almost shrill, “and calls on them all to fall upon their knees, by God! ‘for so,’ she says, ’from this night all men shall kneel—­all men on whom I deign to cast my eyes.’”

His Grace the Duke of Osmonde had listened silently, and throughout with an impenetrable face, but at this moment he put up his hand and slightly swept his brow with his fingers, as if he felt it damp.

“And now what does it mean?” my Lord Twemlow asked them, with an anxious face.  “And how will it end?  A fortnight later she appeared at church dressed like a lady of the Court, and attended by her sisters and their governess, as if she had never appeared unattended in her life, and prayed, good Lord, with such a majestic seriousness, and listened to the sermon with such a face as made the parson forget his text and fumble about for his notes in dire confusion.  ’Twas thought she might be going to play some trick to cause him to break down in the midst of his discourse.  But she did not, and sailed out of church as if she had never missed a sermon since she was born.”