“Oh, there are some much greater flirts here than I am,” said the ready Miss Lucas; and whispering something in Mrs. Staines’s ear, suddenly glided with her behind a curtain, pressed a sort of button fixed to a looking-glass door.  The door opened, and behold they were in a delicious place, for which I can hardly find a word, since it was a boudoir and a conservatory in one:  a large octagon, the walls lined from floor to ceiling with looking-glasses of moderate width, at intervals, and with creepers that covered the intervening spaces of the wall, and were trained so as to break the outline of the glasses without greatly clouding the reflection.  Ferns, in great variety, were grouped in a deep crescent, and in the bight of this green bay were a small table and chairs.  As there were no hot-house plants, the temperature was very cool, compared with the reeking oven they had escaped; and a little fountain bubbled, and fed a little meandering gutter that trickled away among the ferns; it ran crystal clear over little bright pebbles and shells.  It did not always run, you understand; but Miss Lucas turned a secret tap, and started it.

“Oh, how heavenly!” said Rosa, with a sigh of relief; “and how good of you to bring me here!”

“Yes; by rights I ought to have waited till you fainted.  But there is no making acquaintance among all those people.  Mamma will ask such crowds; one is like a fly in a glue-pot.”

Miss Lucas had good nature, smartness, and animal spirits; hence arose a vivacity and fluency that were often amusing, and passed for very clever.  Reserve she had none; would talk about strangers, or friends, herself, her mother, her God, and the last buffoon-singer, in a breath.  At a hint from Rosa, she told her who the lady in the pink dress was, and the lady in the violet velvet, and so on; for each lady was defined by her dress, and, more or less, quizzed by this show-woman, not exactly out of malice, but because it is smarter and more natural to decry than to praise, and a little medisance is the spice to gossip, belongs to it, as mint sauce to lamb.  So they chatted away, and were pleased with each other, and made friends, and there, in cool grot, quite forgot the sufferings of their fellow-creatures in the adjacent Turkish bath, yclept society.  It was Rosa who first recollected herself.  “Will not Mrs. Lucas be angry with me, if I keep you all to myself?”

“Oh no; but I’m afraid we must go into the hot-house again.  I like the greenhouse best, with such a nice companion.”

They slipped noiselessly into the throng again, and wriggled about, Miss Lucas presenting her new friend to several ladies and gentlemen.

Presently Staines found them, and then Miss Lucas wriggled away; and in due course the room was thinned by many guests driving off home, or to balls, and other receptions, and Dr. Staines and Mrs. Staines went home to the Bijou.  Here the physician prescribed bed; but the lady would not hear of such a thing until she had talked it all over.  So they compared notes, and Rosa told him how well she had got on with Miss Lucas, and made a friendship.  “But for that,” said she, “I should be sorry I went among those people, such a dowdy.”