Her mother-in-law’s meditations were interrupted by the young widow skurrying in in desperate haste.  “Jane has gone for a cab,” she exclaimed; “have you that shilling?”

“Here; you had better have eighteenpence, in case—­”

“Oh yes, I had better; and do I look nice?”

“Very nice indeed.  I think you are looking so much better than you did last year—­”

“That is because I go out a little; I delight in the theatre.  Now I must be off.  There is the cab—­oh! a horrid four-wheeler.  Good-by, dear.”

Mrs. Burnett was the wife of a civilian high up in the Indian service, and was herself a woman of good family.  She had come home in the previous winter in order to introduce her eldest daughter to society, and accidentally meeting Mrs. Frederic Liddell, whom she had known in India, was graciously pleased to patronize her.  She had taken a handsome furnished house near Hyde Park, and kept it freely open during the season.  Admission to such an establishment was a sort of “open sesame” to heaven for the little widow.  She loved, she adored Mrs. Burnett and her dear charming girls, to say nothing of two half-grown sons, “the most delightful boys!” She was really fond of them for the time, and it was this touch of temporary sincerity that gave her the unconscious power to hold the hearts of Mrs. Burnett and her daughters.

She was quite the pet of the family, and always at their beck and call.  To keep this position she strained every means; she even denied herself an occasional pair of gloves in order to tip the stately man-servant who opened the door and opened her umbrella occasionally for her.

She found the whole party assembled in the dining-room, and her entrance was hailed with acclamations.

“I had just begun to tremble lest you should not come,” cried Mrs. Burnett, stretching out her hand, but not rising from her seat at the head of the table.

“I only had your note half an hour ago,” said Mrs. Liddell, with pardonable inaccuracy, feeling her spirits rise in the delightful atmosphere, flower-scented, and stirred by the laughter and joyous chatter of the “goodlie companie.”

A long table set forth with all the paraphernalia of an excellent luncheon was surrounded by a merry party, the girls in charming summer toilettes, and as many men as women.  Men, too, in the freshest possible attire, all “on pleasure bent.”

“Do you know us all?” asked Mrs. Burnett, looking round.  “Yes, I think all but Lady Alice Mordaunt and Mr. Kirby.”

“I have never had the pleasure of meeting Lady Alice Mordaunt before”—­with a graceful little courtesy—­“but Mr. Kirby, though he has forgotten me, I remember meeting him at Rumchuddar, when I first went out to my poor dear papa.  Perhaps you remember him—­Captain Dunbar, at——?” Thus said Mrs. Liddell, as she glided into her seat between one of the Burnetts and a tall, big, shapeless-looking man with red hair, small sharp eyes, a yellow-ochreish complexion, and craggy temples, who had risen courteously to make room for her.