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 of a 
 
 (Marchioness
 
 Emily Fox- Se ton
 
 (Marchioness 
 
 NEWY9RK 
 
 FREDERICK A.STQKES, COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, /par, by 
 The Century Company 
 
 Copyright, igoi, by 
 Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 Copyright, IQOI, by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 Published September, 
 
 University Press, Jobn ffilson and Son 
 Cambridge, U. S. A.
 
 PS 
 /2/ 
 M28
 
 family <jbz~cfe ton 
 Cora Brooke
 
 <7ke (Marquis o/
 
 arc/lioness
 
 HEN Miss Fox-Seton 
 descended from the 
 twopenny bus as it 
 drew up, she gathered 
 her trim tailor-made 
 skirt about her with neatness and de- 
 corum, being well used to getting in and 
 out of twopenny buses and to making her 
 way across muddy London streets. A 
 woman whose tailor-made suit must last 
 two or three years soon learns how to pro- 
 tect it from splashes, and how to aid it to 
 retain the freshness of its folds. During her 
 I".]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 trudging about this morning in the wet, 
 Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful, and, 
 in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as 
 unspotted as she had left it. She had been 
 thinking a good deal about her dress this 
 particular faithful one which she had already 
 worn through a twelvemonth. Skirts had 
 made one of their appalling changes, and as 
 she walked down Regent Street and Bond 
 Street she had stopped at the windows of 
 more than one shop bearing the sign u Ladies' 
 Tailor and Habit-Maker," and had looked 
 at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim 
 models, her large, honest hazel eyes wear- 
 ing an anxious expression. She was trying 
 to discover where seams were to be placed 
 and how gathers were to be hung ; or if 
 there were to be gathers at all ; or if one 
 had to be bereft of every seam in a style so
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of the 
 honest and semi-penniless struggling with 
 the problem of remodelling last season's skirt 
 at all. 
 
 "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," 
 she had murmured to herself, " I might be 
 able to buy a yard or so to match it, and 
 I might be able to join the gore near the 
 pleats at the back so that it would not be 
 seen." 
 
 She quite beamed as she reached the 
 happy conclusion. She was such a simple, 
 normal-minded creature that it took but 
 little to brighten the aspect of life for her 
 and to cause her to break into her good- 
 natured, childlike smile. A little kindness 
 from any one, a little pleasure or a little 
 comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered 
 enjoyment. 
 
 C'3]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 As she got out of the bus, and picked up 
 her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp 
 bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street 
 to her lodgings, she was positively radiant. 
 It was not only her smile which was child- 
 like, her face itself was childlike for a woman 
 of her age and size. She was thirty-four 
 and a well-set-up creature, with fine square 
 shoulders and a long small waist and good 
 hips. She was a big woman, but carried 
 herself well, and having solved the problem 
 of obtaining, through marvels of energy and 
 management, one good dress a year, wore it 
 so well, and changed her old ones so dexter- 
 ously, that she always looked rather smartly 
 dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks 
 and nice big, honest eyes, plenty of mouse- 
 brown hair and a short, straight nose. She 
 was striking and well-bred-looking, and her
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 plenitude of good-natured interest in every- 
 body, and her pleasure in everything out of 
 which pleasure could be wrested, gave her 
 big eyes a fresh look which made her seem 
 rather like a nice overgrown girl than a 
 mature woman whose life was a continu- 
 ous struggle with the narrowest of mean 
 fortunes. 
 
 She was a woman of good blood and of 
 good education, as the education of such 
 women goes. She had few relatives, and 
 none of them had any intention of burden- 
 ing themselves with her pennilessness. 
 They were people of excellent family, but 
 had quite enough to do to keep their sons in 
 the army or navy and find husbands for their 
 daughters. When Emily's mother had died 
 and her small annuity had died with her, 
 none of them had wanted the care of a big
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 raw-boned girl, and Emily had had the situa- 
 tion frankly explained to her. At eighteen 
 she had begun work as assistant teacher in 
 a small school; the year following she had 
 taken a place as nursery-governess ; then she 
 had been reading-companion to an unpleas- 
 ant old woman in Northumberland. The 
 old woman had lived in the country, and her 
 relatives had hovered over her like vultures 
 awaiting her decease. The household had 
 been gloomy and gruesome enough to have 
 driven into melancholy madness any girl not 
 of the sanest and most matter-of-fact tem- 
 perament. Emily Fox-Seton had endured it 
 with an unfailing good nature, which at last 
 had actually awakened in the breast of her 
 mistress a ray of human feeling. When the 
 old woman at length died, and Emily was to 
 be turned out into the world, it was revealed 
 [16]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 that she had been left a legacy of a few 
 hundred pounds, and a letter containing 
 some rather practical, if harshly expressed, 
 advice. 
 
 Go back to London [Mrs. Maytham had 
 written in her feeble, crabbed hand]. You are 
 not clever enough to do anything remarkable in 
 the way of earning your living, but you are so 
 good-natured that you can make yourself useful to 
 a lot of helpless creatures who will pay you a trifle 
 for looking after them and the affairs they are too 
 lazy or too foolish to manage for themselves. You 
 might get on to one of the second-class fashion- 
 papers to answer ridiculous questions about house- 
 keeping or wall-papers or freckles. You know the 
 kind of thing I mean. You might write notes or 
 do accounts and shopping for some lazy woman. 
 You are a practical, honest creature, and you have 
 good manners. I have often thought that you had 
 just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of 
 commonplace people want to find at their service. 
 An old servant of mine who lives in Mortimer 
 Street would probably give you cheap, decent 
 
 ['7]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 lodgings, and behave well to you for my sake. 
 She has reason to be fond of me. Tell her I sent 
 you to her, and that she must take you in for ten 
 shillings a week. 
 
 Emily wept for gratitude, and ever after- 
 ward enthroned old Mrs. Maytham on an 
 altar as a princely and sainted benefactor, 
 though after she had invested her legacy she 
 got only twenty pounds a year from it. 
 
 "It was so kind of her," she used to say 
 with heartfelt humbleness of spirit. " I 
 never dreamed of her doing such a generous 
 thing. I had n't a shadow of a claim upon 
 her not a shadow" 
 
 It was her way to express her honest 
 emotions with emphasis which italicised, as 
 it were, her outpourings of pleasure or 
 appreciation. 
 
 She returned to London and presented 
 herself to the ex-serving-woman. Mrs. Cupp 
 [18]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 had indeed reason to remember her mistress 
 gratefully. At a time when youth and in- 
 discreet affection had betrayed her disas- 
 trously, she had been saved from open 
 disgrace and taken care of by Mrs. May- 
 tham. The old lady, who had then been a 
 vigorous, sharp-tongued, middle-aged woman, 
 had made the soldier lover marry his despair- 
 ing sweetheart, and when he had promptly 
 drunk himself to death, she had set her up 
 in a lodging-house which had thriven and 
 enabled her to support herself and her 
 daughter decently. 
 
 In the second story of her respectable, 
 dingy house there was a small room which 
 she went to some trouble to furnish up for 
 her dead mistress's friend. It was made into 
 a bed-sitting-room with the aid of a cot 
 which Emily herself bought and disguised 
 ['9]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 decently as a couch during the daytime, by 
 means of a red and blue Como blanket. 
 The one window of the room looked out 
 upon a black little back-yard and a sooty 
 wall on which thin cats crept stealthily or 
 sat and mournfully gazed at fate. The 
 Como rug played a large part in the decora- 
 tion of the apartment. One of them, with a 
 piece of tape run through a hem, hung over 
 the door in the character of a portiere; 
 another covered a corner which was Miss 
 Fox-Seton's sole wardrobe. As she began 
 to get work, the cheerful, aspiring creature 
 bought herself a Kensington carpet-square, 
 as red as Kensingson art would permit it to 
 be. She covered her chairs with Turkey-red 
 cotton, frilling them round the seats. Over 
 her cheap white muslin curtains (eight and 
 eleven a pair at Robson's) she hung Turkey- 
 
 [20]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion 
 at one of Liberty's sales, and some bits of 
 twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow 
 mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a 
 tea-set of a single cup and saucer, a plate 
 and a teapot, made her feel herself almost 
 sumptuous. After a day spent in trudging 
 about in the wet or cold of the streets, doing 
 other people's shopping, or searching for 
 dressmakers or servants' characters for her 
 patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting- 
 room with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp 
 always had a bright fire glowing in her tiny 
 grate when she came in, and when her lamp 
 was lighted under its home-made shade of 
 crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, com- 
 bining itself with the singing of her little, 
 fat, black kettle on the hob, seemed absolute 
 luxury to a tired, damp woman. 
 [*]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 Mrs. Cupp and Jane Cupp were very 
 kind and attentive to her. No one who 
 lived in the same house with her could have 
 helped liking her. She gave so little trouble, 
 and was so expansively pleased by any atten- 
 tion, that the Cupps, who were sometimes 
 rather bullied and snubbed by the " profes- 
 sionals " who generally occupied their other 
 rooms, quite loved her. Sometimes the 
 " professionals," extremely smart ladies and 
 gentlemen who did turns at the halls or 
 played small parts at theatres, were irregular 
 in their payments or went away leaving bills 
 behind them ; but Miss Fox-Seton's pay- ' 
 ments were as regular as Saturday night, 
 and, in fact, there had been times when, 
 luck being against her, Emily had gone 
 extremely hungry during a whole week 
 rather than buy her lunches at the ladies'
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 tea-shops with the money that would pay 
 her rent. 
 
 In the honest minds of the Cupps, she 
 had become a sort of possession of which 
 they were proud. She seemed to bring into 
 their dingy lodging-house a touch of the 
 great world, that world whose people lived 
 in Mayfair and had country-houses where 
 they entertained parties for the shooting and 
 the hunting, and in which also existed the 
 maids and matrons who on cold spring morn- 
 ings sat, amid billows of satin and tulle 
 and lace, surrounded with nodding plumes, 
 waiting, shivering, for hours in their car- 
 riages that they might at last enter Buck- 
 ingham Palace and be admitted to the 
 Drawing-room. Mrs. Cupp knew that Miss 
 Fox-Seton was " well connected ; " she knew 
 that she possessed an aunt with a title,
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 though her ladyship never took the slight- 
 est notice of her niece. Jane Cupp took 
 " Modern Society," and now and then had 
 the pleasure of reading aloud to her young 
 man little incidents concerning some castle 
 or manor in which Miss Fox-Seton's aunt, 
 Lady Malfry, was staying with earls and 
 special favorites of the Prince's. Jane also 
 knew that Miss Fox-Seton occasionally sent 
 letters addressed " To the Right Honourable 
 the Countess of So-and-so," and received 
 replies stamped with coronets. Once even 
 a letter had arrived adorned with strawberry- 
 leaves, an incident which Mrs. Cupp and 
 Jane had discussed with deep interest over 
 their hot buttered-toast and tea. 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton, however, was far from 
 making any professions of grandeur. As 
 time went on, she had become fond enough 
 
 CH]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 of the Cupps to be quite frank with them 
 about her connections with these grand 
 people. The countess had heard from a 
 friend that Miss Fox-Seton had once found 
 her an excellent governess, and she had 
 commissioned her to find for her a reliable 
 young ladies' serving-maid. She had done 
 some secretarial work for a charity of which 
 the duchess was patroness. In fact, these 
 people knew her only as a well-bred woman 
 who for a modest remuneration would make 
 herself extremely useful in numberless prac- 
 tical ways. She knew much more of them 
 than they knew of her, and, in her affection- 
 ate admiration for those who treated her 
 with human kindness, sometimes spoke to 
 Mrs. Cupp or Jane of their beauty or charity 
 with a very nice, ingenuous feeling. Natu- 
 rally some of her patrons grew fond of
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 her, and as she was a fine, handsome 
 young woman with a perfectly correct 
 bearing, they gave her little pleasures, invit- 
 ing her to tea or luncheon, or taking her 
 to the theatre. 
 
 Her enjoyment of these things was so 
 frank and grateful that the Cupps counted 
 them among their own joys. Jane Cupp 
 who knew something of dressmaking felt 
 it a brilliant thing to be called upon to reno- 
 vate an old dress or help in the making of 
 a new one for some festivity. The Cupps 
 thought their tall, well-built lodger some- 
 thing of a beauty, and when they had helped 
 her to dress for the evening, baring her fine, 
 big white neck and arms, and adorning her 
 thick braids of hair with some sparkling, 
 trembling ornament, after putting her in her 
 four-wheeled cab, they used to go back to 
 [26]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 their kitchen and talk about her, and wonder 
 that some gentleman who wanted a hand- 
 some, stylish woman at the head of his table, 
 did not lay himself and his fortune at her 
 feet. 
 
 41 In the photograph-shops in Regent Street 
 you see many a lady in a coronet that hasn't 
 half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp 
 remarked frequently. " She 's got a nice 
 complexion and a fine head of hair, and 
 if you ask me she 's got as nice a pair ot 
 clear eyes as a lady could have. Then look 
 at her figure her neck and her waist ! 
 That kind of big long throat of hers would 
 set off rows of pearls or diamonds beautiful ! 
 She 's a lady born, too, for all her simple, 
 every-day way ; and she 's a sweet creature, 
 if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness 
 and good-nature I never saw her equal."
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons 
 as well as noble ones, in fact, those of 
 the middle class were far more numerous 
 than the duchesses, so it had been pos- 
 sible for her to do more than one good turn 
 for the Cupp household. She had got sew- 
 ing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane 
 Cupp many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining- 
 room floor had been occupied for years by 
 a young man Emily had been able to rec- 
 ommend. Her own appreciation of good 
 turns made her eager to do them for others. 
 She never let slip a chance to help any one 
 in any way. 
 
 It was a good-natured thing done by one 
 of her patrons who liked her, which made 
 her so radiant as she walked through the 
 mud this morning. She was inordinately 
 fond of the country, and having had what 
 [28]
 
 THE MAKING of a* MARCHIONESS 
 
 she called " a bad winter," she had not seen 
 the remotest chance of getting out of town 
 at all during the summer months. The 
 weather was beginning to be unusually hot, 
 and her small red room, which seemed so 
 cosy in winter, was shut in by a high 
 wall from all chance of breezes. Occasion- 
 ally she lay and panted a little in her cot, 
 and felt that when all the private omnibuses, 
 loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled 
 away and deposited their burdens at the 
 various stations, life in town would be rather 
 lonely. Every one she knew would have 
 gone somewhere, and Mortimer Street in 
 August was a melancholy thing. 
 
 And Lady Maria had actually invited 
 her to Mallowe. What a piece of good 
 fortune what an extraordinary piece of 
 kindness !
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 She did not know what a source of enter- 
 tainment she was to Lady Maria, and how 
 the shrewd, worldly old thing liked her. 
 Lady Maria Bayne was the cleverest, sharp- 
 est-tongued, smartest old woman in London. 
 She knew everybody and had done every- 
 thing in her youth, a good many things not 
 considered highly proper. A certain royal 
 duke had been much pleased with her, and 
 people had said some very nasty things about 
 it. But this had not hurt Lady Maria. She 
 knew how to say nasty things herself, and 
 as she said them wittily they were usually 
 listened to and repeated. 
 
 Ernily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to 
 write notes for an hour every morning. She 
 had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, 
 and put off charities and dull people. She 
 wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a 
 [30]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge 
 of things. Lady Maria began to depend 
 on her and to find that she could be sent 
 on errands and depended on to do a num- 
 ber of things. Consequently, she was often 
 at South Audley Street, and once, when 
 Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was 
 horribly frightened about herself, Emily was 
 such a comfort to her that she kept her 
 for three weeks. 
 
 "The creature is so cheerful and perfectly 
 free from vice that she 's a relief," her lady- 
 ship said to her nephew afterward. u So 
 many women are affected cats. She '11 go 
 out and buy you a box of pills or a porous 
 plaster, but at the same time she has a kind 
 of simplicity and freedom from spites and 
 envies which might be the natural thing 
 for a princess." 
 
 [31]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 So it happened that occasionally Emily 
 put on her best dress and most carefully 
 built hat and went to South Audley Street to 
 tea. (Sometimes she had previously gone in 
 buses to some remote place in the City to 
 buy a special tea of which there had been 
 rumours.) She met some very smart people 
 and rarely any stupid ones, Lady Maria being 
 incased in a perfect, frank armour of good- 
 humoured selfishness, which would have been 
 capable of burning dulness at the stake. 
 
 " I won't have dull people," she used to 
 say. " I 'm dull myself." 
 
 When Emily Fox-Seton went to her on 
 the morning in which this story opens, she 
 found her consulting her visiting-book and 
 making lists. 
 
 " I 'm arranging my parties for Mallowe," 
 she said rather crossly. " How tiresome it 
 [32]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 is ! The people one wants at the same time 
 are always nailed to the opposite ends of 
 the earth. And then things are found out 
 about people, and one can't have them till 
 it 's blown over. Those ridiculous Dexters ! 
 They were the nicest possible pair both of 
 them good-looking and both of them ready 
 to flirt with anybody. But there was too 
 much flirting, I suppose. Good heavens 1 if 
 I could n't have a scandal and keep it quiet, 
 I wouldn't have a scandal at all. Come 
 and help me, Emily." 
 
 Emily sat down beside her. 
 
 " You see, it is my early August party," 
 said her ladyship, rubbing her delicate little 
 old nose with her pencil, " and Walderhurst 
 is coming to me. It always amuses me to 
 have Walderhurst. The moment a man 
 like that comes into a room the women 
 3 [33J
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 begin to frisk about and swim and languish, 
 except those who try to get up interesting 
 conversations they think likely to attract his 
 attention. They all think it is possible that 
 he may marry them. If he were a Mormon 
 he might have marchionesses of Walderhurst 
 of all shapes and sizes." 
 
 " I suppose," said Emily, " that he was 
 very much in love with his first wife and 
 will never marry again." 
 
 " He was n't in love with her any more 
 than he was in love with his housemaid. He 
 knew he must marry, and thought it very 
 annoying. As the child died, I believe he 
 thinks it his duty to marry again. But he 
 hates it. He 's rather dull, and he can't 
 bear women fussing about and wanting to 
 be made love to." 
 
 They went over the visiting-book and 
 [34]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 discussed people and dates seriously. The 
 list was made and the notes written before 
 Emily left the house. It was not until she 
 had got up and was buttoning her coat that 
 Lady Maria bestowed her boon. 
 
 " Emily," she said, " I am going to ask 
 you to Mallowe on the 2d. I want you to 
 help me to take care of people and keep 
 them from boring me and one another, 
 though Jj^on't mind their boring one an- 
 other half so much as I mind their boring 
 me. I want to be able to go off and 
 take my nap at any hour I choose. I 
 will not entertain people. What you can 
 do is to lead them off to gather things 
 or look at church towers. I hope you '11 
 come." 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton's face flushed rosily, and 
 her eyes opened and sparkled. 
 [35]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 " O Lady Maria, you are kind ! " she 
 said. u You know how I should enjoy it. 
 I have heard so much of Mallowe. Every 
 one says it is so beautiful and that there are 
 no such gardens in England." 
 
 " They are good gardens. My 4msband 
 was rather mad about roses. The best train 
 for you to take is the 2:30 from Paddington. 
 That will bring you to the Court just in 
 time for tea on the lawn." 
 
 Emily could have kissed Lady Maria if 
 they had been on the terms which lead peo- 
 ple to make demonstrations of affection. 
 But she would have been quite as likely to 
 kiss the butler when he bent over her at 
 dinner and murmured in dignified confi- 
 dence, " Port or sherry, miss ? " Bibs- 
 worth would have been no more astonished 
 than Lady Maria would, and Bibsworth 
 [36]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 certainly would have expired of disgust and 
 horror. 
 
 She was so happy when she hailed the 
 twopenny bus that when she got into it her 
 face was beaming with the delight which 
 adds freshness and good looks to any woman. 
 To think that such good luck had come to 
 her ! To think of leaving her hot little 
 room behind her and going as a guest to one 
 of the most beautiful old houses in Eng- 
 land ! How delightful it would be to live 
 for a while quite naturally the life the for- 
 tunate people lived year after year to be 
 a part of the beautiful order and picturesque- 
 ness and dignity of it ! To sleep in a lovely 
 bedroom, to be called in the morning by a 
 perfect housemaid, to have one's early tea 
 served in a delicate cup, and to listen as 
 one drank it to the birds singing in the 
 [37]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 trees in the park ! She had an ingenuous 
 appreciation of the simplest material joys, 
 and the fact that she would wear her nicest 
 clothes every day, and dress for dinner every 
 evening, was a delightful thing to reflect 
 upon. She got so much more out of life than 
 most people, though she was not aware of it. 
 
 She opened the front door of the house 
 in Mortimer Street with her latch-key, and 
 went upstairs, almost unconscious that the 
 damp heat was dreadful. She met Jane 
 Cupp coming down, and smiled at her 
 happily. 
 
 " Jane," she said, " if you are not busy, 
 I should like to have a little talk with you. 
 Will you come into my room ? " 
 
 " Yes, miss," Jane replied, with her usual 
 respectful lady's-maid's air. It was in truth 
 Jane's highest ambition to become some day 
 [38]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 maid to a great lady, and she privately felt 
 that her association with Miss Fox-Seton 
 was the best possible training. She used to 
 ask to be allowed to dress her when she 
 went out, and had felt it a privilege to be 
 permitted to " do " her hair. 
 
 She helped Emily to remove her walking- 
 dress, and neatly folded away her gloves and 
 veil. She knelt down before her as soon 
 as she saw her seat herself to take off her 
 muddy boots. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Jane," Emily exclaimed, 
 with her kind italicised manner. " That is 
 good of you. I am tired, really. But such 
 a nice thing has happened. I have had such 
 a delightful invitation for the first week in 
 August." 
 
 " I 'm sure you '11 enjoy it, miss," said 
 Jane. " It 's so hot in August." 
 [39]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 "Lady Maria Bayne has been kind enough 
 to invite me to Mallowe Court," explained 
 Emily, smiling down at the cheap slipper 
 Jane was putting on her large, well-shaped 
 foot. She was built on a large scale, 
 and her foot was of no Cinderella-like 
 proportions. 
 
 " O miss ! " exclaimed Jane. " How 
 beautiful ! I was reading about Mallowe in 
 ' Modern Society ' the other day, and it said 
 it was lovely and her ladyship's parties were 
 wonderful for smartness. The paragraph 
 was about the Marquis of Walderhurst." 
 
 " He is Lady Maria's cousin," said Emily, 
 " and he will be there when I am." 
 
 She was a friendly creature, and lived a 
 life so really isolated from any ordinary com- 
 panionship that her simple little talks with 
 Jane and Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to 
 [40]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 her. The Cupps were neither gossiping 
 nor intrusive, and she felt as if they were 
 her friends. Once when she had been ill 
 for a week she remembered suddenly real- 
 ising that she had no intimates at all, and 
 that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's 
 would certainly be the last faces and the 
 only ones she would see. She had cried 
 a little the night she thought of it, but 
 then, as she told herself, she was feverish 
 and weak, and it made her morbid. 
 
 " It was because of this invitation that 
 I wanted to talk to you, Jane," she went 
 on. " You see, we shall have to begin to 
 contrive about dresses." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, miss. It's fortunate that 
 
 the summer sales are on, is n't it ? I saw 
 
 some beautiful colored linens yesterday. 
 
 They were so cheap, and they do make up 
 
 [4']
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 so smart for the country. Then you 've got 
 your new Tussore with the blue collar and 
 waistband. It does become you." 
 
 " I must say I think that a Tussore always 
 looks fresh," said Emily, " and I saw a really 
 nice little tan toque one of those soft straw 
 ones for three and eleven. And just a 
 twist of blue chiffon and a wing would make 
 it look quite good" 
 
 She was very clever with her ringers, and 
 often did excellent things with a bit of 
 chiffon and a wing, or a few yards of linen 
 or muslin and a remnant of lace picked up at 
 a sale. She and Jane spent quite a happy 
 afternoon in careful united contemplation of 
 the resources of her limited wardrobe. They 
 found that the brown skirt could be altered, 
 and, with the addition of new revers and 
 collar and a jabot of string-coloured lace 
 [4*]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 at the neck, would look quite fresh. A 
 black net evening dress, which a patron 
 had good-naturedly given her the year be- 
 fore, could be remodelled and touched up 
 delightfully. Her fresh face and her square 
 white shoulders were particularly adorned 
 by black. There was a white dress which 
 could be sent to the cleaner's, and an 
 old pink one whose superfluous breadths 
 could be combined with lace and achieve 
 wonders. 
 
 " Indeed, I think I shall be very well ofF 
 for dinner-dresses," said Emily. " Nobody 
 expects me to change often. Every one 
 knows if they notice at all." She did not 
 know she was humble-minded and of an 
 angelic contentedness of spirit. In fact, she 
 did not find herself interested in contempla- 
 tion of her own qualities, but in contempla- 
 [43]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 don and admiration of those of other people. 
 It was necessary to provide Emily Fox- 
 Seton with food and lodging and such a 
 wardrobe as would be just sufficient credit 
 to her more fortunate acquaintances. She 
 worked hard to attain this modest end 
 and was quite satisfied. She found at the 
 shops where the summer sales were being 
 held a couple of cotton frocks to which 
 her height and her small, long waist gave 
 an air of actual elegance. A sailor hat, 
 with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a 
 few new trifles for her neck, a bow, a silk 
 handkerchief daringly knotted, and some 
 fresh gloves, made her feel that she was 
 sufficiently equipped. 
 
 During her last expedition to the sales 
 she came upon a nice white duck coat and 
 skirt which she contrived to buy as a present 
 [44]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 for Jane. It was necessary to count over 
 the contents of her purse very carefully and 
 to give up the purchase of a slim umbrella 
 she wanted, but she did it cheerfully. If she 
 had been a rich woman she would have given 
 presents to every one she knew, and it was 
 actually a luxury to her to be able to do 
 something for the Cupps, who, she always 
 felt, were continually giving her more than 
 she paid for. The care they took of her 
 small room, the fresh hot tea they managed 
 to have ready when she came in, the penny 
 bunch of daffodils they sometimes put on her 
 table, were kindnesses, and she was grateful 
 for them. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you, Jane," 
 
 she said to the girl, when she got into the 
 
 four-wheeled cab on the eventful day of her 
 
 journey to Mallowe. " I don't know what I 
 
 [45]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 should have done without you, I 'm sure. I 
 feel so smart in my dress now that you have 
 altered it. If Lady Maria's maid ever thinks 
 of leaving her, I am sure I could recom- 
 mend you for her place." 
 
 [46]
 
 HERE were other 
 visitors to Mallowe 
 Court travelling by 
 the 2:30 from Pad- 
 dington, but they 
 were much smarter 
 people than Miss Fox-Seton, and they were 
 put into a first-class carriage by a footman 
 with a cockade and a long drab coat. Emily, 
 who travelled third with some workmen 
 with bundles, looked out of her window as 
 they passed, and might possibly have breathed 
 a faint sigh if she had not felt in such buoy- 
 [47]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 ant spirits. She had put on her revived 
 brown skirt and a white linen blouse with a 
 brown dot on it. A soft brown silk tie was 
 knotted smartly under her fresh collar, and 
 she wore her new sailor hat. Her gloves 
 were brown, and so was her parasol. She 
 looked nice and taut and fresh, but notably 
 inexpensive. The people who went to sales 
 and bought things at three and eleven or 
 " four-three " a yard would have been able to 
 add her up and work out her total. But there 
 would be no people capable of the calculation 
 at Mallowe. Even the servants' hall was 
 likely to know less of prices than this one 
 guest did. The people the drab-coated foot- 
 man escorted to the first-class carriage were 
 a mother and daughter. The mother had 
 regular little features, and would have been 
 pretty if she had not been much too plump. 
 [48]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 She wore an extremely smart travelling-dress 
 and a wonderful dust-cloak of cool, pale, 
 thin silk. She was not an elegant person, 
 but her appointments were luxurious and 
 self-indulgent. Her daughter was pretty, 
 and had a slim, swaying waist, soft pink 
 cheeks, and a pouting mouth. Her large 
 picture-hat of pale-blue straw, with its big 
 gauze bow and crushed roses, had a slightly 
 exaggerated Parisian air. 
 
 "It is a little too picturesque," Emily 
 thought ; " but how lovely she looks in it ! 
 I suppose it was so becoming she could not 
 help buying it. I'm sure it's Virot." 
 
 As she was looking at the girl admiringly, 
 a man passed her window. He was a tall 
 man with a square face. As he passed 
 close to Emily, he stared through her head 
 as if she had been transparent or invisible. 
 4 [49]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 He got into the smoking-carriage next to 
 her. 
 
 When the train arrived at Mallowe station, 
 he was one of the first persons who got out. 
 Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting 
 on the platform. Emily recognised their 
 liveries. One met the tall man, touching 
 his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in 
 the shafts of which a splendid iron-gray 
 mare was fretting and dancing. In a few 
 moments the arrival was on the high seat, 
 the footman behind, and the mare speeding 
 up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found her- 
 self following the second footman and the 
 mother and daughter, who were being taken 
 to the landau waiting outside the station. 
 The footman piloted them, merely touching 
 his hat quickly to Emily, being fully aware 
 that she could take care of herself. 
 [50]
 
 
 
 Silk .at 
 
 Cora Brooke
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 This she did promptly, looking after her 
 box, and seeing it safe in the Mallowe omni- 
 bus. When she reached the landau, the two 
 other visitors were in it. She got in, and in 
 entire contentment sat down with her back 
 to the horses. 
 
 The mother and daughter wore for a few 
 minutes a somewhat uneasy air. They were 
 evidently sociable persons, but were not 
 quite sure how to begin a conversation with 
 an as yet unintroduced lady who was going 
 to stay at the country house to which they 
 were themselves invited. 
 
 Emily herself solved the problem, produc- 
 ing her commonplace with a friendly tenta- 
 tive smile. 
 
 u Is n't it a lovely country ? " she said. 
 
 " It 's perfect," answered the mother. 
 u I 've never visited Europe before, and the 
 [Si]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 English country seems to me just exquisite. 
 We have a summer place in America, but 
 the country is quite different." 
 
 She was good-natured and disposed to talk, 
 and, with Emily Fox-Seton's genial assist- 
 ance, conversation flowed. Before they were 
 half-way to Mallowe, it had revealed itself 
 that they were from Cincinnati, and after a 
 winter spent in Paris, largely devoted to 
 visits to Paquin, Doucet, and Virot, they 
 had taken a house in Mayfair for the season. 
 Their name was Brooke. Emily thought she 
 remembered hearing of them as people who 
 spent a great deal of money and went in- 
 cessantly to parties, always in new and 
 lovely clothes. The girl had been presented 
 by the American minister, and had had a 
 sort of success because she dressed and 
 danced exquisitely. She was the kind of 
 [5*]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 American girl who ended by marrying a 
 title. She had sparkling eyes and a delicate 
 tip-tilted nose. But even Emily guessed 
 that she was an astute little person. 
 
 " Have you ever been to Mallowe Court 
 before ? " she inquired. 
 
 " No ; and I am so looking forward to it. 
 It is so beautiful." 
 
 u Do you know Lady Maria very well ? " 
 
 "I've known her about three years. She 
 has been very kind to me." 
 
 " Well, I should n't have taken her for 
 a particularly kind person. She 's too 
 sharp." 
 
 Emily amiably smiled. " She 's so clever," 
 she replied. 
 
 " Do you know the Marquis of Walder- 
 hurst ? " asked Mrs. Brooke. 
 
 " No," answered Miss Fox-Seton. She 
 [53]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 had no part in that portion of Lady Maria's 
 life which was illumined by cousins who 
 were marquises. Lord Walderhurst did not 
 drop in to afternoon tea. He kept himself 
 for special dinner-parties. 
 
 " Did you see the man who drove away 
 in the high cart ? " Mrs. Brooke continued, 
 with a touch of fevered interest. " Cora 
 thought it must be the marquis. The ser- 
 vant who met him wore the same livery 
 as the man up there" with a nod toward 
 the box. 
 
 " It was one of Lady Maria's servants," 
 said Emily ; " I have seen him in South Aud- 
 ley Street. And Lord Walderhurst was to 
 be at Mallowe. Lady Maria mentioned it." 
 
 " There, mother ! " exclaimed Cora. 
 
 " Well, of course if he is to be there, 
 it will make it interesting," returned her 
 [54]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 mother, in a tone in which lurked an ad- 
 mission of relief. Emily wondered if she 
 had wanted to go somewhere else and had 
 been firmly directed toward Mallowe by her 
 daughter. 
 
 " We heard a great deal of him in Lon- 
 don this season," Mrs. Brooke went on. 
 
 Miss Cora Brooke laughed. 
 
 " We heard that at least half a dozen 
 people were determined to marry him," she 
 remarked with pretty scorn. " I should 
 think that to meet a girl who was indiffer- 
 ent might be good for him." 
 
 " Don't be too indifferent, Cora," said 
 her mother, with ingenuous ineptness. 
 
 It was a very stupid bit of revelation, and 
 
 Miss Brooke's eyes flashed. If Emily Fox- 
 
 Seton had been a sharp woman, she would 
 
 have observed that, if the role of indifferent 
 
 [55]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 and piquant young person could be made 
 dangerous to Lord Walderhurst, it would 
 be made so during this visit. The man was 
 in peril from this beauty from Cincinnati 
 and her rather indiscreet mother, though, 
 upon the whole, the indiscreet maternal 
 parent might unconsciously form his pro- 
 tection. 
 
 But Emily only laughed amiably, as at a 
 humorous remark. She was ready to accept 
 almost anything as humour. 
 
 "Well, he would be a great match for 
 any girl," she said. " He is so rich, you 
 know. He is very rich." 
 
 When they reached Mallowe, and were 
 led out upon the lawn, where the tea was 
 being served under embowering trees, they 
 found a group of guests eating little hot 
 cakes and holding teacups in their hands. 
 [56]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 There were several young women, and one 
 of them a very tall, very fair girl, with 
 large eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, and with 
 a lovely, limp, and long blue frock of the 
 same shade had been one of the beauties 
 of the past season. She was a Lady Agatha 
 Slade, and Emily began to admire her at 
 once. She felt her to be a sort of added 
 boon bestowed by kind Fate upon herself. 
 It was so delightful that she should be of 
 this particular house-party this lovely 
 creature, whom she had only known pre- 
 viously through pictures in ladies' illustrated 
 papers. If it should occur to her to wish 
 to become the Marchioness of Walder- 
 hurst, what could possibly prevent the con- 
 summation of her desire ? Surely not Lord 
 Walderhurst himself, if he was human. 
 She was standing, leaning lightly against the 
 [57]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 trunk of an ilex-tree, and a snow-white 
 Borzoi was standing close to her, resting 
 his long, delicate head against her gown, 
 encouraging the caresses of her fair, stroking 
 hand. She was in this attractive pose when 
 Lady Maria turned in her seat and said : 
 
 " There 's Walderhurst." 
 
 The man who had driven himself over 
 from the station in the cart was coming 
 towards them across the grass. He was 
 past middle life and plain, but was of good 
 height and had an air. It was perhaps, on 
 the whole, rather an air of knowing what 
 he wanted. 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton, who by that time was 
 comfortably seated in a cushioned basket- 
 chair, sipping her own cup of tea, gave him 
 the benefit of the doubt when she wondered 
 if he was not really distinguished and aristo- 
 [58]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 cratic-looking. He was really neither, but 
 was well built and well-dressed, and had 
 good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour 
 of his grayish-brown hair. Among these 
 amiably worldly people, who were not in 
 the least moved by an altruistic prompting, 
 Emily's greatest capital consisted in the fact 
 that she did not expect to be taken the least 
 notice of. She was not aware that it was 
 her capital, because the fact was so wholly 
 a part of the simple contentedness of her 
 nature that she had not thought about it at 
 all. The truth was that she found all her 
 entertainment and occupation in being an 
 audience or a spectator. 
 
 It did not occur to her to notice that, 
 
 when the guests were presented to him, Lord 
 
 Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface 
 
 as he bowed, and could scarcely be said to 
 
 [59]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 forget her existence the next second, because 
 he had hardly gone to the length of recog- 
 nising it. As she enjoyed her extremely 
 nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, 
 she also enjoyed looking at his Lordship 
 discreetly, and trying to make an innocent 
 summing up of his mental attitudes. 
 
 Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be 
 pleased to see him. He himself seemed, 
 in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady 
 Maria. He also was evidently glad to get 
 his tea, and enjoved it as he sat at his cousin's 
 side. He did not pay very much attention 
 to any one else. Emily was slightly dis- 
 appointed to see that he did not glance at 
 the beauty and the Borzoi more than twice, 
 and then that his examination seemed as 
 much for the Borzoi as for the beauty. 
 She could not help also observing that since 
 [60]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 he had joined the circle it had become more 
 animated, so far at least as the female mem- 
 bers were concerned. She could not help 
 remembering Lady Maria's remark about 
 the effect he produced on women when he 
 entered a room. Several interesting or 
 sparkling speeches had already been made. 
 There was a little more laughter and chat- 
 tiness, which somehow it seemed to be quite 
 open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy, though 
 it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss 
 Cora Brooke, however, devoted herself to a 
 young man in white flannels with an air of 
 tennis about him. She sat a little apart and 
 talked to him in a voice soft enough to 
 even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently 
 she and her companion got up and sauntered 
 away. They went down the broad flight 
 of ancient stone steps which led to the ten- 
 [61]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 nis-court, lying in full view below the lawn. 
 There they began to play tennis. Miss 
 Brooke skimmed and darted about like a 
 swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats 
 was most attractive. 
 
 " That girl ought not to play tennis in 
 shoes with ridiculous heels," remarked Lord 
 Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court." 
 
 Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle. 
 
 " She wanted to play at this particular 
 moment," she said. " And as she has only 
 just arrived, it did not occur to her to come 
 out to tea in tennis-shoes." 
 
 " She '11 spoil the court all the same," said 
 the marquis. " What clothes ! It 's amaz- 
 ing how girls dress now." 
 
 " I wish I had such clothes," answered 
 Lady Maria, and she chuckled again. 
 
 11 She 's got beautiful feet." 
 [62]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " She 's got Louis Quinze heels," re- 
 turned his Lordship. 
 
 At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought 
 Miss Brooke seemed to intend to rather keep 
 out of his way and to practise no delicate 
 allurements. When her tennis-playing was 
 at an end, she sauntered about the lawn 
 and terraces with her companion, tilting her 
 parasol prettily over her shoulder, so that it 
 formed an entrancing background to her face 
 and head. She seemed to be entertaining the 
 young man. His big laugh and the silver 
 music of her own lighter merriment rang out 
 a little tantalisingly. 
 
 " I wonder what Cora is saying," said 
 Mrs. Brooke to the group at large. "She 
 always makes men laugh so." 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, 
 the merriment sounded so attractive. She 
 [63]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 wondered if perhaps to a man who had been 
 so much run after a girl who took no notice 
 of his presence and amused other men so 
 much might not assume an agreeable aspect. 
 
 But he took more notice of Lady Agatha 
 Slade than of any one else that evening. 
 She was placed next to him at dinner, and 
 she really was radiant to look upon in palest 
 green chiffon. She had an exquisite little head, 
 with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness 
 upon it, and her long little neck swayed like 
 the stem of a flower. She was lovely enough 
 to arouse in the beholder's mind the antici- 
 pation of her being silly, but she was not 
 silly at all. 
 
 Lady Maria commented upon that fact to 
 Miss Fox-Seton when they met in her bed- 
 room late that night. Lady Maria liked to 
 talk and be talked to for half an hour after 
 [64]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 the day was over, and Emily Fox-Seton's 
 admiring interest in all she said she found at 
 once stimulating and soothing. Her Lady- 
 ship was an old woman who indulged and 
 inspired herself with an Epicurean wisdom. 
 Though she would not have stupid people 
 about her, she did not always want very 
 clever ones. 
 
 " They give me too much exercise," she 
 said. " The epigrammatic ones keep me 
 always jumping over fences. Besides, I like 
 to make all the epigrams myself." 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton struck a happy mean, 
 and she was a genuine admirer. She was 
 intelligent enough not to spoil the point of 
 an epigram when she repeated it, and she 
 might be relied upon to repeat it and give 
 all the glory to its originator. Lady Maria 
 knew there were people who, hearing your 
 5 [6 5 ]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 good things, appropriated them without a 
 scruple. 
 
 To-night she said a number of good 
 things to Emily in summing up her guests 
 and their characteristics. 
 
 " Walderhurst has been to me three times 
 when I made sure that he would not escape 
 without a new marchioness attached to him. 
 I should think he would take one to put an 
 end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked 
 upon the bough. A man in his position, if 
 he has character enough to choose, can 
 prevent even his wife's being a nuisance. 
 He can give her a good house, hang the 
 family diamonds on her, supply a decent 
 elderly woman as a sort of lady-in-waiting 
 and turn her into the paddock to kick up 
 her heels within the limits of decorum. His 
 own rooms can be sacred to him. He has his 
 [66]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 clubs and his personal interests. Husbands 
 and wives annoy each other very little in 
 these days. Married life has become com- 
 paratively decent." 
 
 " I should think his wife might be very 
 happy," commented Emily. " He looks 
 very kind." 
 
 " I don't know whether he is kind or not. 
 It has never been necessary for me to borrow 
 money from him." 
 
 Lady Maria was capable of saying odd 
 things in her refined little drawling voice. 
 
 " He 's more respectable than most men 
 of his age. The diamonds are magnificent, 
 and he not only has three superb places, but 
 has money enough to keep them up. Now, 
 there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the 
 present party. Of course you can guess 
 who they are, Emily ? " 
 [67]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed. She 
 felt a little indelicate. 
 
 " Lady Agatha would be very suitable," she 
 said. " And Mrs. Ralph is very clever, of 
 course. And Miss Brooke is really pretty." 
 
 Lady Maria gave vent to her small 
 chuckle. 
 
 " Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who 
 means business. She '11 corner Walderhurst 
 and talk literature and roll her eyes at him 
 until he hates her. These writing women, 
 who are intensely pleased with themselves, 
 if they have some good looks into the bar- 
 gain, believe themselves capable of marry- 
 ing any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes 
 and rolls them. Walderhurst won't be 
 ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than 
 Ralph. She was very sharp this afternoon. 
 She began at once." 
 
 [68]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 "I I did n't see her " wondering. 
 " Yes, you did ; but you did n't under- 
 stand. The tennis, and the laughing with 
 young Heriot on the terrace ! She is going 
 to be the piquant young woman who aggra- 
 vates by indifference, and disdains rank and 
 splendour; the kind of girl who has her 
 innings in novelettes but not out of them. 
 The successful women are those who know 
 how to toady in the right way and not obvi- 
 ously. Walderhurst has far too good an 
 opinion of himself to be attracted by a girl 
 who is making up to another man : he 's 
 not five-and-twenty." 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite 
 of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's plaint : " Don't 
 be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want 
 to recall it exactly, because she thought the 
 Brookes agreeable and would have preferred 
 [69]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 to think them disinterested. But, after all, 
 she reflected, how natural that a girl who 
 was so pretty should feel that the Mar- 
 quis of Walderhurst represented prospects. 
 Chiefly, however, she was filled with ad- 
 miration at Lady Maria's cleverness. 
 
 " How wonderfully you observe every- 
 thing, Lady Maria ! " she exclaimed. " How 
 wonderfully ! " 
 
 " I have had forty-seven seasons in Lon- 
 don. That's a good many, you know. 
 Forty-seven seasons of debutantes and 
 mothers tend toward enlightenment. Now 
 there is Agatha Slade, poor girl ! She 's of 
 a kind I know by heart. With birth and 
 beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her peo- 
 ple are poor enough to be entitled to aid 
 from the Chanty Organisation, and they 
 have had the indecency to present them- 
 [70]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 selves with six daughters six! All with 
 delicate skins and delicate little noses and 
 heavenly eyes. Most men can't afford them, 
 and they can't afford most men. As soon 
 as Agatha begins to go off a little, she will 
 have to step aside, if she has not married. 
 The others must be allowed their chance. 
 Agatha has had the advertising of the illus- 
 trated papers this season, and she has gone 
 well. In these days a new beauty is adver- 
 tised like a new soap. They have n't given 
 them sandwich-men in the streets, but that 
 is about all that has been denied them. But 
 Agatha has not had any special offer, and I 
 know both she and her mother are a little 
 frightened. Alix must come out next sea- 
 son, and they can't afford frocks for two. 
 Agatha will have to be sent to their place 
 in Ireland, and to be sent to Castle Clare is
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 almost like being sent to the Bastille. She '11 
 never get out alive. She'll have to stay 
 there and see herself grow thin instead of 
 slim, and colourless instead of fair. Her little 
 nose will grow sharp, and she will lose her 
 hair by degrees." 
 
 " Oh ! " Emily Fox-Seton gave forth sym- 
 pathetically. " What a pity that would be ! 
 I thought I really thought Lord Wal- 
 derhurst seemed to admire her." 
 
 "Oh, every one admires her, for that 
 matter; but if they go no further that will 
 not save her from the Bastille, poor thing. 
 There, Emily; we must go to bed. We 
 have talked enough."
 
 O awaken in a still, de- 
 licious room, with the 
 summer morning sun- 
 shine breaking softly 
 into it through leafy 
 greenness, was a de- 
 lightful thing to Miss Fox-Seton, who was 
 accustomed to opening her eyes upon four 
 walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of 
 outside hammerings, and the rattle and heavy 
 roll of wheels. In a building at the back of 
 her bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose 
 occupation, beginning early in the morning, 
 involved banging of a persistent nature. 
 [73]
 
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 She awakened to her first day at Mallowe, 
 stretching herself luxuriously, with the smile 
 of a child. She was so thankful for the soft- 
 ness of her lavender-fragrant bed, and so de- 
 lighted with the lovely freshness of her 
 chintz-hung room. As she lay upon her 
 pillow, she could see the boughs of the trees, 
 and hear the chatter of darting starlings. 
 When her morning tea was brought, it 
 seemed like nectar to her. She was a per- 
 fectly healthy woman, with a palate as un- 
 spoiled as that of a six-year-old child in the 
 nursery. Her enjoyment of all things was 
 so normal as to be in her day and time an 
 absolute abnormality. 
 
 She rose and dressed at once, eager for 
 
 the open air and sunshine. She was out 
 
 upon the lawn before any one else but the 
 
 Borzoi, which rose from beneath a tree and 
 
 [74]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 came with stately walk toward her. The 
 air was exquisite, the broad, beautiful stretch 
 of view lay warm in the sun, the masses of 
 flowers on the herbaceous borders showed 
 leaves and flower-cups adorned with glitter- 
 ing drops of dew. She walked across the 
 spacious sweep of short-cropped sod, and 
 gazed enraptured at the country spread out 
 below. She could have kissed the soft 
 white sheep dotting the fields and lying in 
 gentle, huddled groups under the trees. 
 
 "The darlings! " she said, in a little, effu- 
 sive outburst. 
 
 She talked to the dog and fondled him. 
 He seemed to understand her mood, and 
 pressed close against her gown when she 
 stopped. They walked together about the 
 gardens, and presently picked up an exuber- 
 ant retriever, which bounded and wriggled 
 [75]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 and at once settled into a steady trot beside 
 them. Emily adored the flowers as she 
 walked by their beds, and at intervals 
 stopped to bury her face in bunches of 
 spicy things. She was so happy that the 
 joy in her hazel eyes was pathetic. 
 
 She was startled, as she turned into a 
 rather narrow rose-walk, to see Lord \Val- 
 derhurst coming toward her. He looked 
 exceedingly clean in his fresh light knicker- 
 bocker suit, which was rather becoming to 
 him. A gardener was walking behind, evi- 
 dently gathering roses for him, which he 
 put into a shallow basket. Emily Fox-Seton 
 cast about for a suitable remark to make, if 
 he should chance to stop to speak to her. 
 She consoled herself with the thought that 
 there were things she really wanted to say 
 about the beauty of the gardens, and certain 
 [76]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 clumps of heavenly-blue campanulas, which 
 seemed made a feature of in the herbaceous 
 borders. It was so much nicer not to be 
 obliged to invent observations. But his lord- 
 ship did not stop to speak to her. He was 
 interested in his roses (which, she heard after- 
 ward, were to be sent to town to an invalid 
 friend), and as she drew near, he turned aside 
 to speak to the gardener. As Emily was just 
 passing him when he turned again, and as 
 the passage was narrow, he found himself 
 unexpectedly gazing into her face. 
 
 Being nearly of the same height, they 
 were so near each other that it was a little 
 awkward. 
 
 " I beg pardon," he said, stepping back a 
 pace and lifting his straw hat. 
 
 But he did not say, " I beg pardon, Miss 
 Fox-Seton," and Emily knew that he had 
 [77]
 
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 not recognised her again, and had not the 
 remotest idea who she was or where she 
 came from. 
 
 She passed him with her agreeable, 
 friendly smile, and there returned to her 
 mind Lady Maria's remarks of the night 
 before. 
 
 " To think that if he married poor pretty 
 Lady Agatha she will be mistress of three 
 places quite as beautiful as Mallowe, three 
 lovely old houses, three sets of gardens, with 
 thousands of flowers to bloom every year ! 
 How nice it would be for her ! She is so 
 lovely that it seems as if he must fall in love 
 with her. Then, if she was Marchioness 
 of Walderhurst, she could do so much for 
 her sisters." 
 
 After breakfast she spent her morning in 
 doing a hundred things for Lady Maria. 
 [78]
 
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 She wrote notes for her, and helped her to 
 arrange plans for the entertainment of her 
 visitors. She was very busy and happy. In 
 the afternoon she drove across the moor to 
 Maundell, a village on the other side of it. 
 She really went on an errand for her host- 
 ess, but as she was fond of driving and the 
 brown cob was a beauty, she felt that she 
 was being given a treat on a level with the 
 rest of her ladyship's generous hospitalities. 
 She drove well, and her straight, strong 
 figure showed to much advantage on the 
 high seat of the cart. Lord Walderhurst 
 himself commented on her as he saw her 
 drive away. 
 
 " She has a nice, flat, straight back, that 
 
 woman," he remarked to Lady Maria. 
 
 " What is her name ? One never hears 
 
 people's names when one is introduced." 
 
 [79]
 
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 " Her name is Emily Fox-Seton," her 
 ladyship answered, " and she 's a nice 
 creature." 
 
 "That would be an inhuman thing to say 
 to most men, but if one is a thoroughly self- 
 ish being, and has some knowledge of one's 
 own character, one sees that a nice creature 
 might be a nice companion." 
 
 " You are quite right," was Lady Maria's 
 reply, as she held up her lorgnette and 
 watched the cart spin down the avenue. " I 
 am selfish myself, and I realise that is the 
 reason why Emily Fox-Seton is becoming 
 the lodestar of my existence. There is such 
 comfort in being pandered to by a person 
 who is not even aware that she is pandering. 
 She does n't suspect that she is entitled to 
 thanks for it." 
 
 That evening Mrs. Ralph came shining 
 [80]
 
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 to dinner in amber satin, which seemed to 
 possess some quality of stimulating her to 
 brilliance. She was witty enough to collect 
 an audience, and Lord Walderhurst was 
 drawn within it. This was Mrs. Ralph's 
 evening. When the men returned to the 
 drawing-room, she secured his lordship at 
 once and managed to keep him. She was a 
 woman who could talk pretty well, and per- 
 haps Lord Walderhurst was amused. Emily 
 Fox-Seton was not quite sure that he was, 
 but at least he listened. Lady Agatha Slade 
 looked a little listless and pale. Lovely as 
 she was, she did not always collect an audi- 
 ence, and this evening she said she had a 
 headache. She actually crossed the room, 
 and taking a seat by Miss Emily Fox-Seton, 
 began to talk to her about Lady Maria's 
 charity-knitting which she had taken up. 
 6 [8.]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 Emily was so gratified that she found conver- 
 sation easy. She did not realise that at that 
 particular moment she was a most agreeable 
 and comforting companion for Agatha Slade. 
 She had heard so much of her beauty during 
 the season, and remembered so many little 
 things that a girl who was a thought de- 
 pressed might like to hear referred to again. 
 Sometimes to Agatha the balls where people 
 had collected in groups to watch her dancing, 
 the flattering speeches she had heard, the daz- 
 zling hopes which had been raised, seemed a 
 little unreal, as if, after all, they could have 
 been only dreams. This was particularly so, 
 of course, when life had dulled for a while 
 and the atmosphere of unpaid bills became 
 heavy at home. It was so to-day, because 
 the girl had received a long, anxious letter 
 from her mother, in which much was said 
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 of the importance of an early preparation 
 for the presentation of Alix, who had really 
 been kept back a year, and was in fact 
 nearer twenty than nineteen. 
 
 " If we were not in Debrett and Burke, 
 one might be reserved about such matters," 
 poor Lady Claraway wrote ; " but what is 
 one to do when all the world can buy one's 
 daughters' ages at the booksellers' ? " 
 
 Miss Fox-Seton had seen Lady Agatha's 
 portrait at the Academy and the way in 
 which people had crowded about it. She 
 had chanced to hear comments also, and she 
 agreed with a number of persons who had not 
 thought the picture did the original justice. 
 
 " Sir Bruce Norman was standing by me 
 
 with an elderly lady the first time I saw it," 
 
 she said, as she turned a new row of the big 
 
 white-wool scarf her hostess was knitting 
 
 [83]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 for a Deep-Sea Fishermen's Charity. " He 
 really looked quite annoyed. I heard him 
 say : c It is not good at all. She is far, far 
 lovelier. Her eyes are like blue flowers.' 
 The moment I saw you, I found myself 
 looking at your eyes. I hope I did n't seem 
 rude." 
 
 Lady Agatha smiled. She had flushed 
 delicately, and took up in her slim hand a 
 skein of the white wool. 
 
 " There are some people who are never 
 rude," she sweetly said, " and you are one of 
 them, I am sure. That knitting looks nice. 
 I wonder if I could make a comforter for a 
 deep-sea fisherman." 
 
 " If it would amuse you to try," Emily 
 answered, " I will begin one for you. Lady 
 Maria has several pairs of wooden needles. 
 Shall I ? " 
 
 CH]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 " Do, please. How kind of you ! " 
 In a pause of her conversation, Mrs. 
 Ralph, a little later, looked across the room 
 at Emily Fox-Seton bending over Lady Agatha 
 and the knitting, as she gave her instructions. 
 " What a good-natured creature that is ! " 
 she said. 
 
 Lord Walderhurst lifted his monocle and 
 inserted it in his unillumined eye. He also 
 looked across the room. Emily wore the 
 black evening dress which gave such oppor- 
 tunities to her square white shoulders and 
 firm column of throat -, the country air and 
 sun had deepened the colour on her cheek, 
 and the light of the nearest lamp fell kindly 
 on the big twist of her nut-brown hair, and 
 burnished it. She looked soft and warm, 
 and so generously interested in her pupil's 
 progress that she was rather sweet. 
 [85]
 
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 Lord Walderhurst simply looked at her. 
 He was a man of but few words. Women 
 who were sprightly found him somewhat un- 
 responsive. In fact, he was aware that a 
 man in his position need not exert himself. 
 The women themselves would talk. They 
 wanted to talk because they wanted him to 
 hear them. 
 
 Mrs. Ralph talked. 
 
 " She is the most primeval person I know. 
 She accepts her fate without a trace of re- 
 sentment; she simply accepts it." 
 
 " What is her fate ? " asked Lord Walder- 
 hurst, still gazing in his unbiassed manner 
 through his monocle, and not turning his 
 head as he spoke. 
 
 " It is her fate to be a woman who is per- 
 fectly well born, and who is as penniless as 
 a charwoman, and works like one. She is at 
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 the beck and call of any one who will give 
 her an odd job to earn a meal with. That 
 is one of the new ways women have found 
 of making a living." 
 
 " Good skin," remarked Lord Walder- 
 hurst, irrelevantly. " Good hair quite a 
 lot." 
 
 " She has some of the nicest blood in 
 England in her veins, and she engaged my 
 last cook for me," said Mrs. Ralph. 
 
 " Hope she was a good cook." 
 
 u Very. Emily Fox-Seton has a faculty 
 of finding decent people. I believe it is 
 because she is so decent herself" with a 
 little laugh. 
 
 "Looks quite decent," commented Wal- 
 derhurst. 
 
 The knitting was getting on famously. 
 
 " It was odd you should see Sir Bruce 
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 Norman that day," Agatha Slade was saying. 
 " It must have been just before he was called 
 away to India." 
 
 " It was. He sailed the next day. I hap- 
 pen to know, because some friends of mine 
 met me only a few yards from your picture 
 and began to talk about him. I had not 
 known before that he was so rich. I had 
 not heard about his collieries in Lancashire. 
 Oh!" opening her big eyes in heartfelt 
 yearning, " how I wish I owned a colliery! 
 It must be so nice to be rich ! " 
 
 " I never was rich," answered Lady Aga- 
 tha, with a bitter little sigh. "I know it 
 is hideous to be poor." 
 
 " / never was rich," said Emily, " and I 
 never shall be. You " a little shyly 
 " are so different." 
 
 Lady Agatha flushed delicately again. 
 [88]
 
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 Emily Fox-Seton made a gentle little joke. 
 " You have eyes like blue flowers," she said. 
 
 Lady Agatha lifted the eyes like blue 
 flowers, arid they were pathetic. 
 
 " Oh ! " she gave forth almost impetu- 
 ously, " sometimes it seems as if it does not 
 matter whether one has eyes or not." 
 
 It was a pleasure to Emily Fox-Seton to 
 realise that after this the beauty seemed to 
 be rather drawn toward her. Their ac- 
 quaintance became almost a sort of intimacy 
 over the wool scarf for the deep-sea fisher- 
 man, which was taken up and laid down, 
 and even carried out on the lawn and left 
 under the trees for the footmen to restore 
 when they brought in the rugs and cushions. 
 Lady Maria was amusing herself with the 
 making of knitted scarfs and helmets just 
 now, and bits of white or gray knitting were 
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 the fashion at Mallowe. Once Agatha 
 brought hers to Emily's room in the after- 
 noon to ask that a dropped stitch might be 
 taken up, and this established a sort of pre- 
 cedent. Afterward they began to exchange 
 visits. 
 
 The strenuousness of things was becom- 
 ing, in fact, almost too much for Lady 
 Agatha. Most unpleasant things were hap- 
 pening at home, and occasionally Castle 
 Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like 
 a spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, 
 in Lady Claraway's opinion, to have kept 
 quiet and waited in patience until things 
 became better, were becoming hideously 
 persistent. In view of the fact that Alix 
 next season must be provided for, it was 
 most awkward. A girl could not be pre- 
 sented and properly launched in the world, 
 [90]
 
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 in a way which would give her a proper 
 chance, without expenditure. To the Clara- 
 ways expenditure meant credit, and there 
 were blots as of tears on the letters in which 
 Lady Claraway reiterated that the trades- 
 people were behaving horribly. Sometimes, 
 she said once in desperation, things looked 
 as if they would all be obliged to shut them- 
 selves up in Castle Clare to retrench ; and 
 then what was to become of Alix and her 
 season ? And there were Millicent and 
 Hilda and Eve. 
 
 More than once there was the mist of 
 tears in the flower-blue eyes when Lady 
 Agatha came to talk. Confidence between 
 two women establishes itself through pro- 
 cesses at once subtle and simple. Emily 
 Fox-Seton could not have told when she first 
 began to know that the beauty was troubled
 
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 and distressed ; Lady Agatha did not know 
 when she first slipped into making little frank 
 speeches about herself; but these things came 
 about. Agatha found something like com- 
 fort in her acquaintance with the big, normal, 
 artless creature something which actually 
 raised her spirits when she was depressed. 
 Emily Fox-Seton paid constant kindly trib- 
 ute to her charms, and helped her to believe 
 in them. When she was with her, Agatha 
 always felt that she really was lovely, after 
 all, and that loveliness was a great capital. 
 Emily admired and revered it so, and evi- 
 dently never dreamed of doubting its om- 
 nipotence. She used to talk as if any girl 
 who was a beauty was a potential duchess. 
 In fact, this was a thing she quite ingenu- 
 ously believed. She had not lived in a world 
 where marriage was a thing of romance, 
 [9*]
 
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 and, for that matter, neither had Agatha. 
 It was nice if a girl liked the man who 
 married her, but if he was a well-behaved, 
 agreeable person, of good means, it was 
 natural that she would end by liking him 
 sufficiently ; and to be provided for com- 
 fortably or luxuriously for life, and not left 
 upon one's own hands or one's parents', was 
 a thing to be thankful for in any case. It 
 was such a relief to everybody to know 
 that a girl was " settled," and especially 
 it was such a relief to the girl herself. Even 
 novels and plays were no longer fairy-stories 
 of entrancing young men and captivating 
 young women who fell in love with each 
 other in the first chapter, and after increas- 
 ingly picturesque incidents were married in 
 the last one in the absolute surety of be- 
 ing blissfully happy forevermore. Neither 
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 Lady Agatha nor Emily had been brought 
 up on this order of literature, nor in an at- 
 mosphere in which it was accepted without 
 reservation. 
 
 They had both had hard lives, and knew 
 what lay before them. Agatha knew she 
 must make a marriage or fade out of ex- 
 istence in prosaic and narrowed dulness. 
 Emily knew that there was no prospect for 
 her of desirable marriage at all. She was 
 too poor, too entirely unsupported by social 
 surroundings, and not sufficiently radiant to 
 catch the roving eye. To be able to main- 
 tain herself decently, to be given an occa- 
 sional treat by her more fortunate friends, 
 and to be allowed by fortune to present to 
 the face of the world the appearance of a 
 woman who was not a pauper, was all she 
 could expect. But she felt that Lady Agatha 
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 had the right to more. She did not reason 
 the matter out and ask herself why she had 
 the right to more, but she accepted the prop- 
 osition as a fact. She was ingenuously 
 interested in her fate, and affectionately 
 sympathetic. She used to look at Lord 
 \Valderhurst quite anxiously at times when 
 he was talking to the girl. An anxious 
 mother could scarcely have regarded him 
 with a greater desire to analyse his senti- 
 ments. The match would be such a fitting 
 one. He would make such an excellent 
 husband and there were three places, and 
 the diamonds were magnificent. Lady Maria 
 had described to her a certain tiara which 
 she frequently pictured to herself as glitter- 
 ing above Agatha's exquisite low brow. It 
 would be infinitely more becoming to her 
 than to Miss Brooke or Mrs. Ralph, though 
 [95]
 
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 either of them would have worn it with spirit. 
 She could not help feeling that both Mrs. 
 Ralph's brilliancy and Miss Brooke's in- 
 souciant prettiness were not unworthy of 
 being counted in the running, but Lady 
 Agatha seemed somehow so much more 
 completely the thing wanted. She was 
 anxious that she should always look her best, 
 and when she knew that disturbing letters 
 were fretting her, and saw that they made 
 her look pale and less luminous, she tried 
 to raise her spirits. 
 
 " Suppose we take a brisk walk," she 
 would say, u and then you might try a 
 little nap. You look a little tired." 
 
 " Oh," said Agatha one day, " how kind 
 you are to me ! I believe you actually care 
 about my complexion about my looking 
 well." 
 
 [96]
 
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 " Lord Walderhurst said to me the other 
 day," was Emily's angelically tactful answer, 
 " that you were the only woman he had ever 
 seen who always looked lovely." 
 
 " Did he ? " exclaimed Lady Agatha, and 
 flushed sweetly. " Once Sir Bruce Norman 
 actually said that to me. I told him it was 
 the nicest thing that could be said to a 
 woman. It is all the nicer" with a sigh 
 "because it isn't really true." 
 
 " I am sure Lord Walderhurst believed it 
 true," Emily said. " He is not a man who 
 talks, you know. He is very serious and 
 dignified." 
 
 She had herself a reverence and admiration 
 for Lord Walderhurst bordering on tender 
 awe. He was indeed a well-mannered per- 
 son, of whom painful things were not said. 
 He also conducted himself well toward his 
 7 [97]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 tenantry, and was patron of several notable 
 charities. To the unexacting and innocently 
 respectful mind of Emily Fox-Seton this 
 was at once impressive and attractive. She 
 knew, though not intimately, many noble 
 personages quite unlike him. She was rather 
 early Victorian and touchingly respectable. 
 
 " I have been crying," confessed Lady 
 Agatha. 
 
 " I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said 
 Emily. 
 
 " Things are getting hopeless in Curzon 
 Street. I had a letter from Millicent this 
 morning. She is next in age to Alix, and 
 she says oh, a number of things. When 
 girls see everything passing by them, it 
 makes them irritable. Millicent is seven- 
 teen, and she is too lovely. Her hair is 
 like a red-gold cloak, and her eyelashes are 
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 twice as long as mine." She sighed again, 
 and her lips, which were like curved rose- 
 petals, unconcealedly quivered. " They were 
 all so cross about Sir Bruce Norman going 
 to India," she added. 
 
 " He will come back," said Emily, be- 
 nignly ; " but he may be too late. Has 
 he " ingenuously " seen Alix ? " 
 
 Agatha flushed oddly this time. Her deli- 
 cate skin registered every emotion exqui- 
 sitely. " He has seen her, but she was in 
 the school-room, and I don't think " 
 
 She did not finish, but stopped un- 
 easily, and sat and gazed out of the open 
 window into the park. She did not look 
 happy. 
 
 The episode of Sir Bruce Norman was 
 brief and even vague. It had begun well. 
 Sir Bruce had met the beauty at a ball, and 
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 they had danced together more than once. 
 Sir Bruce had attractions other than his old 
 baronetcy and his coal-mines. He was a 
 good-looking person, with a laughing brown 
 eye and a nice wit. He had danced charm- 
 ingly and paid gay compliments. He would 
 have done immensely well. Agatha had 
 liked him. Emily sometimes thought she 
 had liked him very much. Her mother had 
 liked him and had thought he was attracted. 
 But after a number of occasions of agreeable 
 meetings, they had encountered each other 
 on the lawn at Goodwood, and he had an- 
 nounced that he was going to India. Forth- 
 with he had gone, and Emily had gathered 
 that somehow Lady Agatha had been con- 
 sidered somewhat to blame. Her people 
 were not vulgar enough to express this 
 frankly, but she had felt it. Her younger 
 [100]
 
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 sisters had, upon the whole, made her feel 
 it most. It had been borne in upon her that 
 if Alix, or Millicent with the red-gold cloak, 
 or even Eve, who was a gipsy, had been 
 given such a season and such Doucet frocks, 
 they would have combined them with their 
 wonderful complexions and lovely little chins 
 and noses in such a manner as would at 
 least have prevented desirable acquaintances 
 from feeling free to take P. and O. steamers 
 to Bombay. 
 
 In her letter of this morning, Millicent's 
 temper had indeed got somewhat the better 
 of her taste and breeding, and lovely Agatha 
 had cried large tears. So it was comforting 
 to be told that Lord Walderhurst had said 
 such an extremely amiable thing. If he 
 was not young, he was really very nice, and 
 there were exalted persons who absolutely 
 [101]
 
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 had rather a fad for him. It would be ex- 
 ceptionally brilliant. 
 
 The brisk walk was taken, and Lady 
 Agatha returned from it blooming. She was 
 adorable at dinner, and in the evening gath- 
 ered an actual court about her. She was all 
 in pink, and a wreath of little pink wild roses 
 lay close about her head, making her, with 
 her tall young slimness, look like a Botti- 
 celli nymph. Emily saw that Lord Walder- 
 hurst looked at her a great deal. He sat on 
 an extraordinarily comfortable corner seat, 
 and stared through his monocle. 
 
 Lady Maria always gave her Emily plenty 
 to do. She had a nice taste in floral ar- 
 rangement, and early in her visit it had 
 fallen into her hands as a duty to u do " 
 the flowers. 
 
 The next morning she was in the gardens 
 
 [102]
 
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 early, gathering roses with the dew on them, 
 and was in the act of cutting some adorable 
 " Mrs. Sharman Crawfords," when she found 
 it behoved her to let down her carefully 
 tucked up petticoats, as the Marquis of Wal- 
 derhurst was walking straight toward her. 
 An instinct told her that he wanted to talk 
 to her about Lady Agatha Slade. 
 
 " You get up earlier than Lady Agatha," 
 he remarked, after he had wished her " Good 
 morning." 
 
 " She is oftener invited to the country 
 than I am," she answered. "When I have 
 a country holiday, I want to spend every 
 moment of it out of doors. And the morn- 
 ings are so lovely. They are not like this 
 in Mortimer Street." 
 
 " Do you live in Mortimer Street ? " 
 
 Yes."
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " Do you like it ? " 
 
 " I am very comfortable. I am fortunate 
 in having a nice landlady. She and her 
 daughter are very kind to me." 
 
 The morning was indeed heavenly. The 
 masses of flowers were drenched with dew, 
 and the already hot sun was drawing fra- 
 grance from them and filling the warm air 
 with it. The marquis, with his monocle 
 fixed, looked up into the cobalt-blue sky and 
 among the trees, where a wood-dove or two 
 cooed with musical softness. 
 
 "Yes," he observed, with a glance which 
 swept the scene, " it is different from Mor- 
 timer Street, I suppose. Are you fond of 
 the country ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," sighed Emily ; " oh, yes ! " 
 
 She was not a specially articulate person. 
 She could not have conveyed in words all 
 [ I0 4]
 
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 that her u Oh, yes ! " really meant of simple 
 love for and joy in rural sights and sounds 
 and scents. But when she lifted her big 
 kind hazel eyes to him, the earnestness 
 of her emotion made them pathetic, as 
 the unspeakableness of her pleasures often 
 did. 
 
 Lord Walderhurst gazed at her through 
 the monocle with an air he sometimes had 
 of taking her measure without either unkind- 
 liness or particular interest. 
 
 " Is Lady Agatha fond of the country ? " 
 he inquired. 
 
 " She is fond of everything that is beauti- 
 ful," she replied. " Her nature is as lovely 
 as her face, I think." 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
 Emily walked a step or two away to a 
 rose climbing up the gray-red wall, and
 
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 began to clip off blossoms, which tumbled 
 sweetly into her basket. 
 
 " She seems lovely in everything," she 
 said, " in disposition and manner and 
 everything. She never seems to disappoint 
 one or make mistakes." 
 
 " You are fond of her ? '* 
 
 " She has been so kind to me." 
 
 * 
 
 " You often say people are kind to you." 
 
 Emily paused and felt a trifle confused. 
 Realising that she was not a clever person, 
 and being a modest one, she began to wonder 
 if she was given to a parrot-phrase which made 
 her tiresome. She blushed up to her ears. 
 
 "People are kind," she said hesitatingly. 
 " I you see, I have nothing to give, and I 
 always seem to be receiving." 
 
 " What luck ! " remarked his lordship, 
 calmly gazing at her. 
 
 [106]
 
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 He made her feel rather awkward, and 
 she was at once relieved and sorry when he 
 walked away to join another early riser who 
 had come out upon the lawn. For some 
 mysterious reason Emily Fox-Seton liked 
 him. Perhaps his magnificence and the 
 constant talk she had heard of him had 
 warmed her imagination. He had never 
 said anything particularly intelligent to her, 
 but she felt as if he had. He was a rather 
 silent man, but never looked stupid. He had 
 made some good speeches in the House of 
 Lords, not brilliant, but sound and of a dig- 
 nified respectability. He had also written 
 two pamphlets. Emily had an enormous 
 respect for intellect, and frequently, it must 
 be admitted, for the thing which passed for 
 it. She was not exacting. 
 
 During her stay at Mallowe in the sum- 
 [107]
 
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 mer, Lady Maria always gave a village treat. 
 She had given it for forty years, and it was 
 a lively function. Several hundred wildly 
 joyous village children were fed to repletion 
 with exhilarating buns and cake and tea in 
 mugs, after which they ran races for prizes, 
 and were entertained in various ways, with 
 the aid of such of the house-party as were 
 benevolently inclined to make themselves 
 useful. 
 
 Everybody was not so inclined, though 
 people always thought the thing amusing. 
 Nobody objected to looking on, and some 
 were agreeably stimulated by the general 
 sense of festivity. But Emily Fox-Seton 
 was found by Lady Maria to be invaluable 
 on this occasion. It was so easy, without 
 the least sense of ill-feeling, to give her all 
 the drudgery to do. There was plenty of 
 [108]
 
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 drudgery, though it did not present itself to 
 Emily Fox-Stton in that light. She no more 
 realised that she was giving Lady Maria a 
 good deal for her money, so to speak, than 
 she realised that her ladyship, though an 
 amusing and delightful, was an absolutely sel- 
 fish and inconsiderate old woman. So long 
 as Emily Fox-Seton did not seem obviously 
 tired, it would not have occurred to Lady 
 Maria that she could be so; that, after all, 
 her legs and arms were mere human flesh 
 and blood, that her substantial feet were 
 subject to the fatigue unending trudging to 
 and fro induces. Her ladyship was simply 
 delighted that the preparations went so well, 
 that she could turn to Emily for service and 
 always find her ready. Emily made lists and 
 calculations, she worked out plans and made 
 purchases. She interviewed the village ma- 
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 trons who made the cake and buns, and 
 boiled the tea in bags in a copper ; she 
 found the women who could be engaged to 
 assist in cutting cake and bread-and-butter 
 and helping to serve it; she ordered the put- 
 ting up of tents and forms and tables; the 
 innumerable things to be remembered she 
 called to mind. 
 
 "Really, Emily," said Lady Maria, "I 
 don't know how I have done this thing for 
 forty years without you. I must always 
 have you at Mallowe for the treat." 
 
 Emily was of the genial nature which 
 rejoices upon even small occasions, and is 
 invariably stimulated to pleasure by the 
 festivities of others. The festal atmosphere 
 was a delight to her. In her numberless 
 errands to the village, the sight of the excite- 
 ment in the faces of the children she passed 
 [no]
 
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 on her way to this cottage and that filled 
 her eyes with friendly glee and wreathed her 
 face with smiles. When she went into the 
 cottage where the cake was being baked, 
 children hovered about in groups and nudged 
 each other, giggling. They hung about, 
 partly through thrilled interest, and partly 
 because their joy made them eager to courtesy 
 to her as she came out, the obeisance seem- 
 ing to identify them even more closely 
 with the coming treat. They grinned and 
 beamed rosily, and Emily smiled at them and 
 nodded, uplifted by a pleasure almost as in- 
 fantile as their own. She was really enjoy- 
 ing herself so honestly that she did not 
 realise how hard she worked during the days 
 before the festivity. She was really ingeni- 
 ous, and invented a number of new methods 
 of entertainment. It was she who, with the 
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 aid of a couple of gardeners, transformed 
 the tents into bowers of green boughs and 
 arranged the decorations of the tables and 
 the park gates. 
 
 " What a lot of walking you do ! " Lord 
 Walderhurst said to her once, as she passed 
 the group on the lawn. " Do you know 
 how many hours you have been on your 
 feet to-day ? " 
 
 "I like it," she answered, and, as she 
 hurried by, she saw that he was sitting a 
 shade nearer to Lady Agatha than she had 
 ever seen him sit before, and that Agatha, 
 under a large hat of white gauze frills, was 
 looking like a seraph, so sweet and shining 
 were her eyes, so flower-fair her face. She 
 looked actually happy. 
 
 " Perhaps he has been saying things," 
 Emily thought. " How happy she will be ! 
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 He has such a nice pair of eyes. He would 
 make a woman very happy." A faint sigh 
 fluttered from her lips. She was beginning 
 to be physically tired, and was not yet quite 
 aware of it. If she had not been physically 
 tired, she would not even vaguely have had, 
 at this moment, recalled to her mind the 
 fact that she was not of the women to whom 
 " things " are said and to whom things 
 happen. 
 
 " Emily Fox-Seton," remarked Lady Maria, 
 fanning herself, as it was frightfully hot, 
 " has the most admirable effect on me. She 
 makes me feel generous. I should like to 
 present her with the smartest things from 
 the wardrobes of all my relations." 
 
 11 Do you give her clothes ? " asked Wal- 
 derhurst. 
 
 " I have n't any to spare. But I know 
 8 [1,3]
 
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 they would be useful to her. The things , 
 she wears are touching ; they are so well 
 contrived, and produce such a decent effect 
 with so little." 
 
 Lord Walderhurst inserted his monocle 
 and gazed after the straight, well-set-up 
 back of the disappearing Miss Fox-Seton. 
 
 " I think," said Lady Agatha, gently, 
 " that she is really handsome." 
 
 " So she is," admitted Walderhurst 
 " quite a good-looking woman." 
 
 That night Lady Agatha repeated the 
 amiability to Emily, whose grateful amaze- 
 ment really made her blush. 
 
 "Lord Walderhurst knows Sir Bruce Nor- 
 man," said Agatha. " Is n't it strange ? 
 He spoke of him to me to-day. He says 
 he is clever." 
 
 " You had a nice talk this afternoon,
 
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 had n't you ? " said Emily. " You both 
 looked so so as if you were enjoying 
 yourselves when I passed." 
 
 " Did he look as if he were enjoying him- 
 self? He was very agreeable. I did not 
 know he could be so agreeable." 
 
 11 1 have never seen him look as 
 much pleased," answered Emily Fox-Seton. 
 " Though he always looks as if he liked 
 talking to you, Lady Agatha. That large 
 white gauze garden-hat " reflectively 
 " is so very becoming." 
 
 " It was very expensive," sighed lovely 
 Agatha. " And they last such a short time. 
 Mamma said it really seemed almost criminal 
 to buy it." 
 
 " How delightful it will be," remarked 
 cheering Emily, " when when you need 
 not think of things like that ! "
 
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 "Oh!" with another sigh, this time a 
 catch of the breath, " it would be like 
 Heaven ! People don't know ; they think 
 girls are frivolous when they care, and that 
 it is n't serious. But when one knows one 
 must have things, that they are like bread, 
 
 it is awful ! " 
 
 "The things you wear really matter." 
 Emily was bringing all her powers to bear 
 upon the subject, and with an anxious kind- 
 ness which was quite angelic. " Each dress 
 makes you look like another sort of picture. 
 Have you " contemplatively " anything 
 quite different to wear to-night and to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 " I have two evening dresses I have not 
 worn here yet " a little hesitatingly. " I 
 
 well, I saved them. One is a very thin 
 black one with silver on it. It has a trem- 
 
 [116]
 
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 bling silver butterfly for the shoulder, and 
 one for the hair." 
 
 " Oh, put that on to-night ! " said Emily, 
 eagerly. " When you come down to dinner 
 you will look so so new ! I always think 
 that to see a very fair person suddenly for 
 the first time all in black gives one a kind 
 of delighted start though start isn't the 
 word, quite. Do put it on." 
 
 Lady Agatha put it on. Emily Fox-Seton 
 came into her room to help to add the last 
 touches to her beauty before she went down 
 to dinner. She suggested that the fair hair 
 should be dressed even higher and more 
 lightly than usual, so that the silver butterfly 
 should poise the more airily over the knot, 
 with its quivering, outstretched wings. She 
 herself poised the butterfly high upon the 
 shoulder. 
 
 ["7]
 
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 " Oh, it is lovely ! " she exclaimed, draw- 
 ing back to gaze at the girl. " Do let me 
 go down a moment or so before you do, 
 so that I can see you come into the room." 
 She was sitting in a chair quite near Lord 
 Walderhurst when her charge entered. She 
 saw him really give something quite like a 
 start when Agatha appeared. His monocle, 
 which had been in his eye, fell out of it, and 
 he picked it up by its thin cord and replaced it. 
 " Psyche ! " she heard him say in his odd 
 voice, which seemed merely to make a state- 
 ment without committing him to an opinion 
 
 "Psyche!" 
 
 He did not say it to her or to any one 
 else. It was simply a kind of exclamation, 
 
 appreciative and perceptive without being 
 enthusiastic, and it was curious. He talked 
 to Agatha nearly all the evening. 
 
 [118]
 
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 Emily came to Lady Agatha before she 
 retired, looking even a little flushed. 
 
 " What are you going to wear at the treat 
 to-morrow ? " she asked. 
 
 " A white muslin, with entre-deux of lace, 
 and the gauze garden-hat, and a white para- 
 sol and shoes." 
 
 Lady Agatha looked a little nervous ; her 
 pink fluttered in her cheek. 
 
 " And to-morrow night ? " said Emily. 
 
 " I have a very pale blue. Won't you 
 sit down, dear Miss Fox-Seton ? " 
 
 " We must both go to bed and sleep. You 
 must not get tired." 
 
 But she sat down for a few minutes, be- 
 cause she saw the girl's eyes asking her to 
 do it. 
 
 The afternoon post had brought a more 
 than usually depressing letter from Curzon
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 Street. Lady Claraway was at her motherly 
 wits' ends, and was really quite touching in 
 her distraction. A dressmaker was entering 
 a suit. The thing would get into the papers, 
 of course. 
 
 " Unless something happens, something to 
 save us by staving off things, we shall have 
 to go to Castle Clare at once. It will be all 
 over. No girl could be presented with such 
 a thing in the air. They don't like it." 
 
 "They," of course, meant persons whose 
 opinions made London's society's law. 
 
 "To go to Castle Clare," faltered Agatha, 
 " will be like being sentenced to starve to 
 death. Alix and Hilda and Millicent and 
 Eve and I will be starved, quite slowly, for 
 the want of the things that make girls' lives 
 bearable when they have been born in a 
 certain class. And even if the most splendid 
 
 [120]
 
 Lady Agatha Slade
 
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 thing happened in three or four years, it 
 would be too late for us four almost too 
 late for Eve. If you are out of London, 
 of course you are forgotten. People can't 
 help forgetting. Why should n't they, when 
 there are such crowds of new girls every 
 year ? " 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton was sweet. She was 
 quite sure that they would not be obliged to 
 go to Castle Clare. Without being indeli- 
 cate, she was really able to bring hope to 
 the fore. She said a good deal of the black 
 gauze dress and the lovely effect of the silver 
 butterflies. 
 
 " I suppose it was the butterflies which 
 made Lord Walderhurst say c Psyche ! 
 Psyche ! ' when he first saw you," she added, 
 en passant. 
 
 " Did he say that ? " And immediately 
 
 [121]
 
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 Lady Agatha looked as if she had not in- 
 tended to say the words. 
 
 "Yes," answered Emily, hurrying on with 
 a casual air which had a good deal of tact 
 in it. " And black makes you so wonderfully 
 fair and aerial. You scarcely look quite real 
 in it ; you might float away. But you must 
 go to sleep now." 
 
 Lady Agatha went with her to the door of 
 the room to bid her good-night. Her eyes 
 looked like those of a child who might pres- 
 ently cry a little. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Fox-Seton," she said, in a very 
 young voice, " you are so kind ! " 
 
 [122]
 
 HE parts of the park 
 nearest to the house 
 already presented a 
 busy aspect when 
 Miss Fox-Seton 
 passed through the 
 gardens the following 
 morning. Tables were being put up, and 
 baskets of bread and cake and groceries were 
 being carried into the tent where the tea was 
 to be prepared. The workers looked inter- 
 ested and good-humoured ; the men touched 
 E>3]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 their hats as Emily appeared, and the women 
 courtesied smilingly. They had all discov- 
 ered that she was amiable and to be relied 
 on in her capacity of her ladyship's repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 "She's a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton," 
 one said to the other. " I never seen one 
 that was a lady fall to as she does. Ladies, 
 even when they means well, has a way of 
 standing about and telling you to do things 
 without seeming to know quite how they 
 ought to be done. She's coming to help 
 with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this 
 morning, and she put up all them packages 
 of sweets yesterday with her own hands. She 
 did 'em up in different-coloured papers, and 
 tied 'em with bits of ribbon, because she said 
 she knowed children was prouder of coloured 
 things than plain they was like that. And
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 so they are : a bit of red or blue goes a long 
 way with a child." 
 
 Emily cut bread-and-butter and cake, and 
 placed seats and arranged toys on tables all 
 the morning. The day was hot, though 
 beautiful, and she was so busy that she had 
 scarcely time for her breakfast. The house- 
 hold party was in the gayest spirits. Lady 
 Maria was in her most amusing mood. She 
 had planned a drive to some interesting 
 ruins for the afternoon of the next day, and 
 a dinner-party for the evening. Her favourite 
 neighbours had just returned to their country- 
 seat five miles away, and they were coming 
 to the dinner, to her great satisfaction. 
 Most of her neighbours bored her, and she 
 took them in doses at her dinners, as she 
 would have taken medicine. But the Lock- 
 yers were young and good-looking and
 
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 clever, and she was always glad when they 
 came to Loche during her stay at Mallowe. 
 
 "There is not a frump or a bore among 
 them," she said. "In the country people 
 are usually frumps when they are not bores, 
 and bores when they are not frumps, and I 
 am in danger of becoming both myself. Six 
 weeks of unalloyed dinner-parties, composed 
 of certain people I know, would make me 
 begin to wear moreen petticoats and talk 
 about the deplorable condition of London 
 society." 
 
 She led all her flock out on to the lawn 
 under the ilex-trees after breakfast. 
 
 " Let us go and encourage industry," she 
 said. " We will watch Emily Fox-Seton 
 working. She is an example." 
 
 Curiously enough, this was Miss Cora 
 Brooke's day. She found herself actually 
 [126]
 
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 walking across the lawn with Lord Wal- 
 derhurst by her side. She did not know 
 how it happened, but it seemed to occur 
 accidentally. 
 
 "We never talk to each other," he said. 
 
 " Well," answered Cora, " we have talked 
 to other people a good deal at least I have." 
 
 " Yes, you have talked a good deal," said 
 the marquis. 
 
 " Does that mean I have talked too much ? " 
 
 He surveyed her prettiness through his 
 glass. Perhaps the holiday stir in the air 
 gave him a festive moment. 
 
 " It means that you haven't talked enough 
 to me. You have devoted yourself too much 
 to the laying low of young Heriot." 
 
 She laughed a trifle saucily. 
 
 " You are a very independent young lady," 
 remarked Walderhurst, with a lighter man- 
 ["7]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 ner than usual. " You ought to say some- 
 thing deprecatory or a little coy, perhaps." 
 
 " I sha'n't," said Cora, composedly. 
 
 u Sha'n't or won't ? " he inquired. " They 
 are both bad words for little girls or young 
 ladies to use to their elders." 
 
 " Both," said Miss Cora Brooke, with a 
 slightly pleased flush. " Let us go over to 
 the tents and see what poor Emily Fox- 
 Seton is doing." 
 
 " Poor Emily Fox-Seton," said the mar- 
 quis, non-committally. 
 
 They went, but they did not stay long. 
 The treat was taking form. Emily Fox- 
 Seton was hot and deeply engaged. People 
 were coming to her for orders. She had a 
 thousand things to do and to superintend 
 the doing of. The prizes for the races and 
 the presents for the children must be ar- 
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 ranged in order : things for boys and things 
 for girls, presents for little children and 
 presents for big ones. Nobody must be 
 missed, and no one must be given the wrong 
 thing. 
 
 " It would be dreadful, you know," Emily 
 said to the two when they came into her 
 tent and began to ask questions, u if a big 
 boy should get a small wooden horse, or a 
 little baby should be given a cricket bat and 
 ball. Then it would be so disappointing 
 if a tiny girl got a work-box and a big one 
 got a doll. One has to get things in order. 
 They look forward to this so, and it 's heart- 
 breaking to a child to be disappointed, is n't 
 it?" 
 
 Walderhurst gazed uninspiringly. 
 
 u Who did this for Lady Maria when you 
 were not here ? " he inquired. 
 9 [129]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " Oh, other people. But she says it was 
 tiresome." Then with an illumined smile : 
 " She has asked me to Mallowe for the 
 next twenty years for the treats. She is so 
 kind." 
 
 " Maria is a kind woman " with what 
 seemed to Emily delightful amiability. "She 
 is kind to her treats and she is kind to 
 Maria Bayne." 
 
 " She is kind to me" said Emily. " You 
 don't know how I am enjoying this." 
 
 " That woman enjoys everything," Lord 
 Walderhurst said when he walked away with 
 Cora. " What a temperament to have ! I 
 would give ten thousand a year for it." 
 
 "She has so little," said Cora, " that 
 
 everything seems beautiful to her. One 
 
 does n't wonder, either. She 's very nice. 
 
 Mother and I quite admire her. We are 
 
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 thinking of inviting her to New York and 
 giving her a real good time." 
 
 " She would enjoy New York." 
 
 " Have you ever been there, Lord Wal- 
 derhurst ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You ought to come, really. So many 
 Englishmen come now, and they all seem to 
 like it." 
 
 " Perhaps I will come," said Walderhurst. 
 " I have been thinking of it. One is tired 
 of the Continent and one knows India. 
 One does n't know Fifth Avenue, and Cen- 
 tral Park, and the Rocky Mountains." 
 
 " One might try them," suggested pretty 
 Miss Cora. 
 
 This certainly was her day. Lord Wal- 
 derhurst took her and her mother out in his 
 own particular high phaeton before lunch. 
 [131]
 
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 He was fond of driving, and his own phaeton 
 and horses had come to Mallowe with him. 
 He took only his favourites out, and though 
 he bore himself on this occasion with a calm 
 air, the event caused a little smiling flurry 
 on the lawn. At least, when the phaeton 
 spun down the avenue with Miss Brooke and 
 her mother looking slightly flushed and thrilled 
 in their high seats of honour, several people 
 exchanged glances and raised eye-brows. 
 
 Lady Agatha went to her room and wrote 
 a long letter to Curzon Street. Mrs. Ralph 
 talked about the problem-play to young He- 
 riot and a group of others. 
 
 The afternoon, brilliant and blazing, 
 brought new visitors to assist by their pres- 
 ence at the treat. Lady Maria always had 
 a large house-party, and added guests from 
 the neighbourhood to make for gaiety. 
 
 Cs]
 
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 At two o'clock a procession of village 
 children and their friends and parents, headed 
 by the village band, marched up the avenue 
 and passed before the house on their way 
 to their special part of the park. Lady 
 Maria and her guests stood upon the broad 
 steps and welcomed the jocund crowd, as 
 it moved by, with hospitable bows and nods 
 and becks and wreathed smiles. Everybody 
 was in a delighted good-humour. 
 
 As the villagers gathered in the park, the 
 house-party joined them by way of the gar- 
 dens. A conjurer from London gave an 
 entertainment under a huge tree, and chil- 
 dren found white rabbits taken from their 
 pockets and oranges from their caps, with 
 squeals of joy and shouts of laughter. Lady 
 Maria's guests walked about and looked on, 
 laughing with the children.
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 The great affair of tea followed the per- 
 formance. No treat is fairly under way 
 until the children are filled to the brim with 
 tea and buns and cake, principally cake in 
 plummy wedges. 
 
 Lady Agatha and Mrs. Ralph handed cake 
 along rows of children seated on the grass. 
 Miss Brooke was talking to Lord Walder- 
 hurst when the work began. She had pop- 
 pies in her hat and carried a poppy-coloured 
 parasol, and sat under a tree, looking very 
 alluring. 
 
 " I ought to go and help to hand cake," 
 she said. 
 
 " My cousin Maria ought to do it," re- 
 marked Lord Walderhurst, " but she will 
 not neither shall I. Tell me something 
 about the elevated railroad and Five-Hun- 
 dred-and-Fifty-Thousandth Street." 
 ['34]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 He had a slightly rude, gracefully languid 
 air, which Cora Brooke found somewhat 
 impressive, after all. 
 
 Emily Fox-Seton handed cake and regu- 
 lated supplies with cheerful tact and good 
 spirits. When the older people were given 
 their tea, she moved about their tables, attend- 
 ing to every one. She was too heart-whole 
 in her interest in her hospitalities to find time 
 to join Lady Maria and her party at the table 
 under the ilex-trees. She ate some bread- 
 and-butter and drank a cup of tea while she 
 talked to some old women she had made 
 friends with. She was really enjoying her- 
 self immensely, though occasionally she was 
 obliged to sit down for a few moments just 
 to rest her tired feet. The children came 
 to her as to an omnipotent and benign being. 
 She knew where the toys were kept and 
 ['35]
 
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 what prizes were to be given for the races. 
 She represented law and order and bestowal. 
 The other ladies walked about in wonderful 
 dresses, smiling and exalted, the gentlemen 
 aided the sports in an amateurish way and 
 made patrician jokes among themselves, but 
 this one lady seemed to be part of the treat 
 itself. She was not so grandly dressed as 
 the others, her dress was only blue linen 
 with white bands on it, and she had only 
 a sailor hat with a buckle and bow, but she 
 was of her ladyship's world of London 
 people, nevertheless, and they liked her more 
 than they had ever liked a lady before. It 
 was a fine treat, and she seemed to have 
 made it so. There had never been quite such 
 a varied and jovial treat at Mallowe before. 
 
 The afternoon waxed and waned. The 
 children played games and raced and rejoiced 
 [136]
 
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 until their young limbs began to fail them. 
 The older people sauntered about or sat in 
 groups to talk and listen to the village band. 
 Lady Maria's visitors, having had enough of 
 rural festivities, went back to the gardens in 
 excellent spirits, to talk and to watch a game 
 of tennis which had taken form on the court. 
 Emily Fox-Seton's pleasure had not abated, 
 but her colour had done so. Her limbs ached 
 and her still-smiling face was pale, as she 
 stood under the beech-tree regarding the final 
 ceremonies of the festal day, to preside over 
 which Lady Maria and her party returned 
 from their seats under the ilex-trees. The 
 National Anthem was sung loudly, and there 
 were three tremendous cheers given for her 
 ladyship. They were such joyous and 
 hearty cheers that Emily was stirred almost 
 to emotional tears. At all events, her hazel 
 [ '37]
 
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 eyes looked nice and moistly bright. She 
 was an easily moved creature. 
 
 Lord Walderhurst stood near Lady Maria 
 and looked pleased also. Emily saw him 
 speak to her ladyship and saw Lady Maria 
 smile. Then he stepped forward, with his 
 non-committal air and his monocle glaring 
 calmly in his eye. 
 
 "Boys and girls," he said in a clear, far- 
 reaching voice, " I want you to give three of 
 the biggest cheers you are capable of for 
 the lady who has worked to make your treat 
 the success it has been. Her ladyship tells 
 me she has never had such a treat before. 
 Three cheers for Miss Fox-Seton." 
 
 Emily gave a gasp and felt a lump rise in 
 her throat. She felt as if she had been with- 
 out warning suddenly changed into a royal 
 personage, and she scarcely knew what to do. 
 ['38]
 
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 The whole treat, juvenile and adult, male 
 and female, burst into three cheers which 
 were roars and bellows. Hats and caps 
 were waved and tossed into the air, and 
 every creature turned toward her as she 
 blushed and bowed in tremulous gratitude 
 and delight. 
 
 Oh, Lady Maria ! oh, Lord Walder- 
 hurst ! " she said, when she managed to get 
 to them, " how kind you are to me ! " 
 
 [139]
 
 FTER she had taken her 
 early tea in the morn- 
 ing, Emily Fox-Seton 
 lay upon her pillows 
 and gazed out upon the 
 tree-branches near her 
 window, in a state of bliss. She was tired, 
 but happy. How well everything had "gone 
 off" ! How pleased Lady Maria had been, 
 and how kind of Lord Walderhurst to ask 
 the villagers to give three cheers for her- 
 self! She had never dreamed, of such a 
 thing. It was the kind of attention not usu- 
 
 [HO]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 ally offered to her. She smiled her childlike 
 smile and blushed at the memory of it. Her 
 impression of the world was that people were 
 really very amiable, as a rule. They were 
 always good to her, at least, she thought, 
 and it did not occur to her that if she had 
 not paid her way so remarkably well by 
 being useful they might have been less 
 agreeable. Never once had she doubted that 
 Lady Maria was the most admirable and 
 generous of human beings. She was not 
 aware in the least that her ladyship got a 
 good deal out of her. In justice to her 
 ladyship, it may be said that she was not 
 wholly aware of it herself, and that Emily 
 absolutely enjoyed being made use of. 
 
 This morning, however, when she got up, 
 she found herself more tired than she ever 
 remembered being before, and it may be 
 [ '4']
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 easily argued that a woman who runs about 
 London on other people's errands often 
 knows what it is to be aware of aching 
 limbs. She laughed a little when she dis- 
 covered that her feet were actually rather 
 swollen, and that she must wear a pair of 
 her easiest slippers. 
 
 " I must sit down as much as I can 
 to-day," she thought. " And yet, with the 
 dinner-party and the excursion this morning, 
 there may be a number of little things Lady 
 Maria would like me to do." 
 
 There were, indeed, numbers of things 
 Lady Maria was extremely glad to ask 
 her to do. The drive to the ruins was 
 to be made before lunch, because some 
 of the guests felt that an afternoon jaunt 
 would leave them rather fagged for the 
 dinner-party in the evening. Lady Maria
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 was not going, and, as presently became 
 apparent, the carriages would be rather 
 crowded if Miss Fox-Seton joined the party. 
 On the whole, Emily was not sorry to have 
 an excuse for remaining at home, and so the 
 carriages drove away comfortably filled, and 
 Lady Maria and Miss Fox-Seton watched 
 their departure. 
 
 " I have no intention of having my vener- 
 able bones rattled over hill and dale the day 
 I give a dinner-party," said her ladyship. 
 " Please ring the bell, Emily. I want to 
 make sure of the fish. Fish is one of the 
 problems of country life. Fishmongers are 
 demons, and when they live five miles from 
 one they can arouse the most powerful 
 human emotions." 
 
 Mallowe Court was at a distance from the 
 country town delightful in its effects upon 
 [ H3]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 the rusticity of the neighbourhood, but appal- 
 ling when considered in connection with 
 fish. One could not dine without fish ; the 
 town was small and barren of resources, and 
 the one fishmonger of weak mind and unre- 
 liable nature. 
 
 The footman who obeyed the summons 
 of the bell informed her ladyship that the 
 cook was rather anxious about the fish, as 
 usual. The fishmonger had been a little 
 doubtful as to whether he could supply her 
 needs, and his cart never arrived until half- 
 past twelve. 
 
 " Great goodness ! " exclaimed her lady- 
 ship when the man retired. " What a sit- 
 uation if we found ourselves without fish ! 
 Old General Barnes is the most ferocious old 
 gourmand in England, and he loathes people 
 who give him bad dinners. We are all 
 E'44]
 
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 rather afraid of him, the fact is, and I will 
 own that I am vain about my dinners. That 
 is the last charm nature leaves a woman, the 
 power to give decent dinners. I shall be 
 fearfully annoyed if any ridiculous thing 
 happens." 
 
 They sat in the morning-room together 
 writing notes and talking, and, as half- past 
 twelve drew near, watching for the fish- 
 monger's cart. Once or twice Lady Maria 
 spoke of Lord Walderhurst. 
 
 " He is an interesting creature, to my 
 mind," she said. " I have always rather 
 liked him. He has original ideas, though he 
 is not in the least brilliant. I believe he 
 talks more freely to me, on the whole, than 
 to most people, though I can't say he has a 
 particularly good opinion of me. He stuck 
 his glass in his eye and stared at me last 
 
 . 10 [ '45 ]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 night, in that weird way of his, and said to 
 me, c Maria, in an ingenuous fashion of your 
 own, you are the most abominably selfish 
 woman I ever beheld.' Still, I know he rather 
 likes me. I said to him: 'That isn't quite 
 true, James. I am selfish, but I 'm not 
 abominably selfish. Abominably selfish people 
 always have nasty tempers, and no one can 
 accuse me of having a nasty temper. I have 
 the disposition of a bowl of bread and milk.' " 
 
 " Emily," as wheels rattled up the 
 avenue, " is that the fishmonger's cart ? " 
 
 "No," answered Emily at the window; 
 " it is the butcher." 
 
 u His attitude toward the women here has 
 made my joy," Lady Maria proceeded, smil- 
 ing over the deep-sea fishermen's knitted 
 helmet she had taken up. " He behaves 
 beautifully to them all, but not one of them 
 [ 146]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 has really a leg to stand on as far as he is 
 responsible for it. But I will tell you some- 
 thing, Emily." And she paused. 
 
 Miss Fox-Seton waited with interested eyes. 
 
 " He is thinking of bringing the thing to 
 an end and marrying some woman. I feel it 
 in my bones." 
 
 "Do you think so?" exclaimed Emily. 
 " Oh, I cari4 help hoping " But she 
 paused also. 
 
 "You hope it will be Agatha Slade," 
 Lady Maria ended for her. " Well, per- 
 haps it will be. I sometimes think it is 
 Agatha, if it 's any one. And yet I 'm not 
 sure. One never could be sure with Wal- 
 derhurst. He has always had a trick of 
 keeping more than his mouth shut. I won- 
 der if he could have any other woman up 
 his sleeve ? " 
 
 [H7]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 " Why do you think " began Emily. 
 Lady Maria laughed. 
 
 "For an odd reason. The Walderhursts 
 have a ridiculously splendid ring in the 
 family, which they have a way of giving to 
 the women they become engaged to. It's 
 ridiculous because well, because a ruby as 
 big as a trousers' button is ridiculous. You 
 can't get over that. There is a story con- 
 nected with this one centuries and things, 
 and something about the woman the first 
 Walderhurst had it made for. She was a 
 Dame Something or Other who had snubbed 
 the King for being forward, and the snub- 
 bing was so good for him that he thought 
 she was a saint and gave the ruby for her 
 betrothal. Well, by the merest accident I 
 found Walderhurst had sent his man to town 
 for it. It came two days ago." 
 [148]
 
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 " Oh, how interesting ! " said Emily, 
 thrilled. "It must mean something." 
 
 " It is rather a joke. Wheels again, Emily. 
 Is that the fishmonger ? " 
 
 Emily went to the window once more. 
 " Yes," she answered, " if his name is 
 Buggle." 
 
 " His name is Buggle," said Lady Maria, 
 " and we are saved." 
 
 But five minutes later the cook herself 
 appeared at the morning-room door. She 
 was a stout person, who panted, and respect- 
 fully removed beads of perspiration from her 
 brow with a clean handkerchief. She was 
 as nearly pale as a heated person of her 
 weight may be. 
 
 " And what has happened now, cook ? " 
 asked Lady Maria. 
 
 " That Buggle, your ladyship," said cook, 
 [49]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 " says your ladyship can't be no sorrier 
 than he is, but when fish goes bad in a 
 night it can't be made fresh in the morn- 
 ing. He brought it that I might see it for 
 myself, and it is in a state as could not be 
 used by any one. I was that upset, your 
 ladyship, that I felt like I must come and 
 explain myself." 
 
 " What can be done ? " exclaimed Lady 
 Maria. " Emily, do suggest something." 
 
 " We can't even be sure," said the cook, 
 " that Batch has what would suit us. Batch 
 sometimes has it, but he is the fishmonger at 
 Maundell, and that is four miles away, and 
 we are short-'anded, your ladyship, now the 
 'ouse is so full, and not a servant that could 
 be spared." 
 
 "Dear me!" said Lady Maria. "Emily, 
 this is really enough to drive one quite mad.
 
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 If everything was not out of the stables, I 
 know you would drive over to Maundell. 
 You are such a good walker," catching a 
 gleam of hope, u do you think you could 
 walk ? " 
 
 Emily tried to look cheerful. Lady 
 Maria's situation was really an awful one 
 for a hostess. It would not have mattered 
 in the least if her strong, healthy body had 
 not been so tired. She was an excellent 
 walker, and ordinarily eight miles would 
 have meant nothing in the way of fatigue. 
 She was kept in good training by her walking 
 in town. Springy moorland swept by fresh 
 breezes was not like London streets. 
 
 " I think I can manage it," she said nice- 
 temperedly. " If I had not run about so 
 much yesterday it would be a mere nothing. 
 You must have the fish, of course. I will
 
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 walk over the moor to Maundell and tell 
 Batch it must be sent at once. Then I 
 will come back slowly. I can rest on the 
 heather by the way. The moor is lovely in 
 the afternoon." 
 
 " You dear soul ! " Lady Maria broke forth. 
 " What a boon you are to a woman ! " 
 
 She felt quite grateful. There arose in 
 her mind an impulse to invite Emily Fox- 
 Seton to remain the rest of her life with her, 
 but she was too experienced an elderly lady 
 to give way to impulses. She privately re- 
 solved, however, that she would have her a 
 good deal in South Audley Street, and would 
 make her some decent presents. 
 
 When Emily Fox-Seton, attired for her 
 walk in her shortest brown linen frock and 
 shadiest hat, passed through the hall, the 
 post-boy was just delivering the midday
 
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 letters to a footman. The servant presented 
 his salver to her with a letter for herself 
 lying upon the top of one addressed in Lady 
 Claraway's handwriting " To the Lady 
 Agatha Slade." Emily recognised it as one 
 of the epistles of many sheets which so often 
 made poor Agatha shed slow and depressed 
 tears. Her own letter was directed in the 
 well-known hand of Mrs. Cupp, and she 
 wondered what it could contain. 
 
 " I hope the poor things are not in any 
 trouble," she thought. " They were afraid 
 the young man in the sitting-room was en- 
 gaged. If he got married and left them, I 
 don't know what they would do ; he has 
 been so regular." 
 
 Though the day was hot, the weather was 
 perfect, and Emily, having exchanged her 
 easy slippers for an almost equally easy pair 
 [53]
 
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 of tan shoes, found her tired feet might still 
 be used. Her disposition to make the very 
 best of things inspired her to regard even an 
 eight-mile walk with courage. The moor- 
 land air was so sweet, the sound of the bees 
 droning as they stumbled about in the heather 
 was such a comfortable, peaceful thing, 
 that she convinced herself that she should 
 find the four miles to Maundell quite 
 agreeable. 
 
 She had so many nice things to think of 
 that she temporarily forgot that she had put 
 Mrs. Cupp's letter in her pocket, and was 
 half-way across the moor before she re- 
 membered it. 
 
 " Dear me ! " she exclaimed when she re- 
 called it. " I must see what has happened." 
 
 She opened the envelope and began to read 
 as she walked ; but she had not taken many
 
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 steps before she uttered an exclamation and 
 stopped. 
 
 " How very nice for them ! " she said, 
 but she turned rather pale. 
 
 From a worldly point of view the news 
 the letter contained was indeed very nice for 
 the Cupps, but it put a painful aspect upon 
 the simple affairs of poor Miss Fox-Seton. 
 
 " It is a great piece of news, in one way," 
 wrote Mrs. Cupp, " and yet me and Jane 
 can't help feeling a bit low at the thought 
 of the changes it will make, and us living 
 where you won't be with us, if I may take 
 the liberty, miss. My brother William made 
 a good bit of money in Australia, but he 
 has always been homesick for the old country, 
 as he always calls England. His wife was a 
 Colonial, and when she died a year ago he 
 made up his mind to come home to settle 
 ['55]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 in Chichester, where he was born. He says 
 there 's nothing like the feeling of a Cathe- 
 dral town. He 's bought such a nice house 
 a bit out, with a big garden, and he wants 
 me and Jane to come and make a home with 
 him. He says he has worked hard all his 
 life, and now he means to be comfortable, 
 and he can't be bothered with housekeeping. 
 He promises to provide well for us both, 
 and he wants us to sell up Mortimer Street, 
 and come as quick as possible. But we 
 shall miss you, miss, and though her Uncle 
 William keeps a trap and everything accord- 
 ing, and Jane is grateful for his kindness, 
 she broke down and cried hard last night, 
 and says to me : c Oh, mother, if Miss Fox- 
 Seton could just manage to take me as a 
 maid, I would rather be it than anything. 
 Traps don't feed the heart, mother, and I Ve 
 E'56]
 
 THE -MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 a feeling for Miss Fox-Seton as is perhaps 
 unbecoming to my station.' But we Ve 
 got the men in the house ticketing things, 
 miss, and we want to know what we shall 
 do with the articles in your bed-sitting- 
 room." 
 
 The friendliness of the two faithful Cupps 
 and the humble Turkey-red comforts of the 
 bed-sitting-room had meant home to Emily 
 Fox-Seton. When she had turned her face 
 and her tired feet away from discouraging 
 errands and small humiliations and discom- 
 forts, she had turned them toward the bed- 
 sitting-room, the hot little fire, the small, fat 
 black kettle singing on the hob, and the two- 
 and-eleven-penny tea-set. Not being given 
 to crossing bridges before she reached them, 
 she had never contemplated the dreary possi- 
 bility that her refuge might be taken away
 
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 from her. She had not dwelt upon the fact 
 that she had no other real refuge on earth. 
 
 As she walked among the sun-heated 
 heather and the luxuriously droning bees, 
 she dwelt upon it now with a suddenly realis- 
 ing sense. As it came home to her soul, 
 her eyes filled with big tears, which brimmed 
 over and rolled down her cheeks. They 
 dropped upon the breast of her linen blouse 
 and left marks. 
 
 " I shall have to find a new bed-sitting- 
 room somewhere," she said, the breast of 
 the linen blouse lifting itself sharply. " It 
 will be so different to be in a house with 
 strangers. Mrs. Cupp and Jane " She 
 was obliged to take out her handkerchief at 
 that moment. " I am afraid I can't get 
 anything respectable for ten shillings a week. 
 It was very cheap and they were so nice ! "
 
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 All her fatigue of the early morning had 
 returned. Her feet began to burn and ache, 
 and the sun felt almost unbearably hot. 
 The mist in her eyes prevented her seeing 
 the path before her. Once or twice she 
 stumbled over something. 
 
 " It seems as if it must be farther than 
 four miles," she said. " And then there is 
 the walk back. I am tired. But I must 
 get on, really."
 
 'HE drive to the ruins had 
 been a great success. It 
 was a drive of just suffi- 
 cient length to put people 
 in spirits without fatigu- 
 ing them. The party 
 came back to lunch with delightful appetites. 
 Lady Agatha and Miss Cora Brooke had 
 pink cheeks. The Marquis of Walderhurst 
 had behaved charmingly to both of them. 
 He had helped each of them to climb about 
 among the ruins, and had taken them both 
 up the steep, dark stairway of one of the 
 [160]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 towers, and stood with them looking over 
 the turrets into the courtyard and the moat. 
 He knew the history of the castle, and could 
 point out the banquet-hall and the chapel 
 and the serving-places, and knew legends 
 about the dungeons. 
 
 " He gives us all a turn, mother," said 
 Miss Cora Brooke. " He even gave a turn 
 yesterday to poor Emily Fox-Seton. He 's 
 rather nice." 
 
 There was a great deal of laughter at 
 lunch after their return. Miss Cora Brooke 
 was quite brilliant in her gay little sallies. 
 But though she was more talkative than 
 Lady Agatha, she did not look more bril- 
 liant. The letter from Curzon Street had 
 not made the beauty shed tears. Her face 
 had fallen when it had been handed to her 
 on her return, and she had taken it upstairs 
 ii [ 161 ]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 to her room with rather a flagging step. But 
 when she came down to lunch she walked 
 with the movement of a nymph. Her lovely 
 little face wore a sort of tremulous radiance. 
 She laughed like a child at every amusing 
 thing that was said. She might have been 
 ten years old instead of twenty-two, her 
 colour, her eyes, her spirits seemed of a 
 freshness so infantine. 
 
 She was leaning back in her chair laugh- 
 ing enchantingly at one of Miss Brooke's 
 sparkling remarks when Lord Walderhurst, 
 who sat next to her, said suddenly, glancing 
 round the table : 
 
 " But where is Miss Fox-Seton ?" 
 
 It was perhaps a significant fact that up 
 to this moment nobody had observed her 
 absence. 
 
 It was Lady Maria who replied. 
 [162]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " I am almost ashamed to answer," she 
 said. " As I have said before, Emily Fox- 
 Seton has become the lodestar of my ex- 
 istence. I cannot live without her. She has 
 walked over to Maundell to make sure that 
 we do not have a dinner-party without fish 
 to-night." 
 
 " She has walked over to Maundell," said 
 Lord Walderhurst " after yesterday ? " 
 
 " There was not a pair of wheels left in 
 the stable," answered Lady Maria. " It is 
 disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid 
 walker, and she said she was not too tired 
 to do it. It is the kind of thing she ought 
 to be given the Victoria Cross for saving 
 one from a dinner-party without fish." 
 
 The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the 
 cord of his monocle and fixed the 
 rigidly in his eye. 
 
 [163]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " It is not only four miles to Maundell," 
 he remarked, staring at the table-cloth, not 
 at Lady Maria, u but it is four miles back." 
 
 " By a singular coincidence," said Lady 
 Maria. 
 
 The talk and laughter went on, and the 
 lunch also, but Lord Walderhurst, for some 
 reason best known to himself, did not finish 
 his. For a few seconds he stared at the 
 table-cloth, then he pushed aside his nearly 
 disposed-of cutlet, then he got up from his 
 chair quietly. 
 
 " Excuse me, Maria," he said, and with- 
 out further ado went out of the room, and 
 walked toward the stables. 
 
 There was excellent fish at Maundell ; 
 Batch produced it at once, fresh, sound, and 
 desirable. Had she been in her normal 
 [164]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 spirits, Emily would have rejoiced at the 
 sight of it, and have retraced her four miles 
 to Mallowe in absolute jubilation. She 
 would have shortened and beguiled her re- 
 turn journey by depicting to herself Lady 
 Maria's pleasure and relief. 
 
 But the letter from Mrs. Cupp lay like a 
 weight of lead in her pocket. It had given 
 her such things to think of as she walked 
 that she had been oblivious to heather and 
 bees and fleece-bedecked summer-blue sky, 
 and had felt more tired than in any tramp 
 through London streets that she could call to 
 mind. Each step she took seemed to be 
 carrying her farther away from the few 
 square yards of home the bed-sitting-room 
 had represented under the dominion of the 
 Cupps. Every moment she recalled more 
 strongly that it had been home home. Of
 
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 course it had not been the third-floor back 
 room so much as it had been the Cupps who 
 made it so, who had regarded her as a sort 
 of possession, who had liked to serve her, 
 and had done it with actual affection. 
 
 " I shall have to find a new place," she 
 kept saying. "I shall have to go among 
 quite strange people." 
 
 She had suddenly a new sense of being 
 without resource. That was one of the 
 proofs of the curious heaviness of the blow 
 the simple occurrence was to her. She felt 
 temporarily almost as if there were no other 
 lodging-houses in London, though she knew 
 that really there were tens of thousands. 
 The fact was that though there might be 
 other Cupps, or their counterparts, she could 
 not make herself believe such a good thing 
 possible. She had been physically worn out 
 ['66]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 before she had read the letter, and its effect 
 had been proportionate to her fatigue and 
 lack of power to rebound. She was vaguely 
 surprised to feel that the tears kept filling 
 her eyes and falling on her cheeks in big 
 heavy drops. She was obliged to use her 
 handkerchief frequently, as if she was sud- 
 denly developing a cold in her head. 
 
 " I must take care," she said once, quite 
 prosaically, but with more pathos in her 
 voice than she was aware of, "or I shall 
 make my nose quite red." 
 
 Though Batch was able to supply fish, 
 he was unfortunately not able to send it to 
 Mallowe. His cart had gone out on a round 
 just before Miss Fox-Seton's arrival, and 
 there was no knowing when it would return. 
 
 " Then I must carry the fish myself," said 
 Emily. " You can put it in a neat basket." 
 [167]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 " I 'm very sorry, miss ; I am, indeed, 
 miss," said Batch, looking hot and pained. 
 
 " It will not be heavy," returned Emily ; 
 "and her ladyship must be sure of it for 
 the dinner-party." 
 
 So she turned back to recross the moor 
 with a basket of fish on her arm. And she 
 was so pathetically unhappy that she felt that 
 so long as she lived the odour of fresh fish 
 would make her feel sorrowful. She had 
 heard of people who were made sorrowful by 
 the odour of a flower or the sound of a 
 melody, but in her case it would be the smell 
 of fresh fish that would make her sad. If 
 she had been a person with a sense of 
 humour, she might have seen that this was 
 thing to laugh at a little. But she was not 
 a humorous woman, and just now 
 
 " Oh, I shall have to find a new place," 
 L'68]
 
 The Marquis of Walderhurst
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 she was thinking, and I have lived in that 
 little room for years." 
 
 The sun got hotter and hotter, and her 
 feet became so tired that she could scarcely 
 drag one of them after another. She had 
 forgotten that she had left Mallowe before 
 lunch, and that she ought to have got a cup 
 of tea, at least, at Maundell. Before she had 
 walked a mile on her way back, she realised 
 that she was frightfully hungry and rather 
 faint. 
 
 " There is not even a cottage where I 
 could get a glass of water," she thought. 
 
 The basket, which was really compara- 
 tively light, began to feel heavy on her arm, 
 and at length she felt sure that a certain 
 burning spot on her left heel must be a blis- 
 ter which was being rubbed by her shoe. 
 How it hurt her, and how tired she was 
 [169]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 how tired ! And when she left Mallowe 
 lovely, luxurious Mallowe she would not 
 go back to her little room all fresh from the 
 Cupps* autumn house-cleaning, which in- 
 cluded the washing and ironing of her Tur- 
 key-red hangings and chair-covers ; she 
 would be obliged to huddle into any poor 
 place she could find. And Mrs. Cupp and 
 Jane would be in Chichester. 
 
 vt But what good fortune it is for them ! " 
 she murmured. " They need never be anx- 
 ious about the future again. How how 
 wonderful it must be to know that one need 
 not be afraid of the future ! I indeed, I 
 think I really must sit down." 
 
 She sat down upon the sun-warmed 
 heather and actually let her tear-wet face 
 drop upon her hands. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! " she
 
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 said helplessly. " I must not let myself do 
 this. I must n't. Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! Oh, 
 dear!" 
 
 She was so overpowered by her sense of 
 her own weakness that she was conscious of 
 nothing but the fact that she must control it. 
 Upon the elastic moorland road wheels stole 
 upon one without sound. So the wheels of 
 a rapidly driven high cart approached her 
 and were almost at her side before she lifted 
 her head, startled by a sudden consciousness 
 that a vehicle was near her. 
 
 It was Lord Walderhurst's cart, and even 
 as she gazed at him with alarmed wet eyes, 
 his lordship descended from it and made a 
 sign to his groom, who at once impassively 
 drove on. 
 
 Emily's lips tried to tremble into a smile ; 
 she put out her hand fumblingly toward the
 
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 fish-basket, and having secured it, began to 
 rise. 
 
 "I sat down to rest," she faltered, even 
 apologetically. " I walked to Maundell, and 
 it was so hot." 
 
 Just at that moment a little breeze sprang 
 up and swept across her cheek. She was 
 so grateful that her smile became less diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 " I got what Lady Maria wanted," she 
 added, and the childlike dimple in her cheek 
 endeavoured to defy her eyes. 
 
 The Marquis of Walderhurst looked 
 rather odd. Emily had never seen him 
 look like this before. He took a silver 
 flask out of his pocket in a matter-of-fact 
 way, and filled its cup with something. 
 
 " That is sherry," he said. " Please drink 
 it. You are absolutely faint." 
 E7]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 She held out her hand eagerly. She could 
 not help it. 
 
 " Oh, thank you thank you ! " she said. 
 " I am so thirsty ! " And she drank it as if 
 it were the nectar of the gods. 
 
 "Now, Miss Fox-Seton," he said, "please 
 sit down again. I came here to drive you 
 back to Mallowe, and the cart will not come 
 back for a quarter of an hour." 
 
 " You came on purpose ! " she exclaimed, 
 feeling, in truth, somewhat awe-struck. 
 " But how kind of you, Lord Walderhurst 
 how good ! " 
 
 It was the most unforeseen and amazing 
 experience of her life, and at once she 
 sought for some reason which could connect 
 with his coming some more interesting 
 person than mere Emily Fox-Seton. Oh, 
 the thought flashed upon her, he had 
 E'73]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 come for some reason connected with Lady 
 Agatha. 
 
 He made her sit down on the heather 
 again, and he took a seat beside her. He 
 looked straight into her eyes. 
 
 " You have been crying," he remarked. 
 
 There was no use denying it. And what 
 was there in the good gray-brown eye, gaz- 
 ing through the monocle, which so moved 
 her by its suggestion of kindness and and 
 some new feeling ? 
 
 " Yes, I have, " she admitted. " I don't 
 often but well, yes, I have." 
 
 " What was it ? " 
 
 It was the most extraordinary thump her 
 heart gave at this moment. She had never 
 felt such an absolute thump. It was per- 
 haps because she was tired. His voice had 
 lowered itself. No man had ever spoken to 
 [174]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 her before like that. It made one feel as if 
 he was not an exalted person at all ; only a 
 kind, kind one. She must not presume upon 
 his kindness and make much of her prosaic 
 troubles. 
 
 She tried to smile in a proper casual way. 
 
 " Oh, it was a small thing, really," was 
 her effort at treating the matter lightly; "but 
 it seems more important to me than it would 
 to any one with with a family. The people 
 I live with who have been so kind to me 
 are going away." 
 
 " The Cupps ? " he asked. 
 
 She turned quite round to look at him. 
 
 " How," she faltered, " did you know about 
 them ? " 
 
 " Maria told me," he answered. " I asked 
 her." 
 
 It seemed such a human sort of interest 
 ['75]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 to have taken in her. She could not under- 
 stand. And she had thought he scarcely 
 realised her existence. She said to herself 
 that was so often the case people were so 
 much kinder than one knew. 
 
 She felt the moisture welling in her eyes, 
 and stared steadily at the heather, trying to 
 wink it away. 
 
 u I am really glad," she explained hastily. 
 " It is such good fortune for them. Mrs. 
 Cupp's brother has offered them such a 
 nice home. They need never be anxious 
 again." 
 
 "But they will leave Mortimer Street 
 and you will have to give up your 
 room." 
 
 "Yes. I must find another." A big 
 drop got the better of her, and flashed on its 
 way down her cheek. " I can find a room, 
 [176]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 perhaps, but I can't find " She was 
 obliged to clear her throat. 
 
 " That was why you cried ? " 
 
 " Yes." After which she sat still. 
 
 " You don't know where you will 
 live ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 She was looking so straight before her and 
 trying so hard to behave discreetly that she 
 did not see that he had drawn nearer to her. 
 But a moment later she realised it, because 
 he took hold of her hand. His own closed 
 over it firmly. 
 
 " Will you," he said "I came here, 
 in fact, to ask you if you will come and live 
 with me ? " 
 
 Her heart stood still, quite still. London 
 was so full of ugly stories about things done 
 by men of his rank stories of transgres- 
 
 12 [I 77 ]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 sions, of follies, of cruelties. So many were 
 open secrets. There were men who, even 
 while keeping up an outward aspect of re- 
 spectability, were held accountable for pain- 
 ful things. The lives of well-born strug- 
 gling women were so hard. Sometimes 
 such nice ones went under because tempta- 
 tion was so great. But she had not thought, 
 she could not have dreamed 
 
 She got on her feet and stood upright be- 
 fore him. He rose with her, and because 
 she was a tall woman their eyes were on a 
 level. Her own big and honest ones were 
 wide and full of crystal tears. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said in helpless woe. " Oh ! " 
 
 It was perhaps the most effective thing a 
 
 woman ever did. It was so simple that it 
 
 was heartbreaking. She could not have 
 
 uttered a word, he was such a powerful and 
 
 ['78]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 great person, and she was so without help 
 or stay. 
 
 Since the occurring of this incident, she 
 has often been spoken of as a beauty, and 
 she has, without doubt, had her fine hours ; 
 but Walderhurst has never told her that 
 the most beautiful moment of her life was 
 undoubtedly that in which she stood upon 
 the heather, tall and straight and simple, 
 her hands hanging by her sides, her large, 
 tear-filled hazel eyes gazing straight into 
 his. In the femininity of her frank defence- 
 lessness there was an appeal to nature's 
 self in man which was not quite of earth. 
 And for several seconds they stood so and 
 gazed into each other's souls the usually 
 unilluminated nobleman and the prosaic young 
 woman who lodged on a third floor back in 
 Mortimer Street. 
 
 C'79]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 Then, quite quickly, something was 
 lighted in his eyes, and he took a step 
 toward her. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he demanded. " What 
 do you suppose I am asking of you ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she answered ; " I 
 don't know." 
 
 " My good girl," he said, even with some 
 irritation, " I am asking you to be my wife. 
 I am asking you to come and live with me 
 in an entirely respectable manner, as the 
 Marchioness of Walderhurst." 
 
 Emily touched the breast of her brown 
 linen blouse with the tips of her fingers. 
 
 " You are asking me ? " she said. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. His glass had 
 
 dropped out of his eye, and he picked it 
 
 up and replaced it. " There is Black with 
 
 the cart," he said. u I will explain myself 
 
 [180]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 with greater clearness as we drive back to 
 Mallowe." 
 
 The basket of fish was put in the cart, 
 and Emily Fox-Seton was put in. Then 
 the marquis got in himself, and took the 
 reins from his groom. 
 
 "You will walk back, Black," he said, 
 "by that path," with a wave of the hand 
 in a diverging direction. 
 
 As they drove across the heather, Emily 
 was trembling softly from head to foot. She 
 could have told no human being what 
 she felt. Only a woman who had lived 
 as she had lived and who had been trained 
 as she had been trained could have felt it. 
 The brilliance of the thing which had hap- 
 pened to her was so unheard of and so 
 undeserved, she told herself. It was so 
 [181]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 incredible that, even with the splendid gray 
 mare's high-held head before her and Lord 
 Walderhurst by her side, she felt that she 
 was only part of a dream. Men had never 
 said "things" to her, and a man was say- 
 ing them the Marquis of Walderhurst was 
 saying them. They were not the kind of 
 things every man says or said in every man's 
 way, but they so moved her soul that she 
 quaked with joy. 
 
 " I am not a marrying man," said his 
 lordship, "but I must marry, and I like you 
 better than any woman I have ever known. 
 I do not generally like women. 1 am a 
 selfish man, and I want an unselfish woman. 
 Most women are as selfish as I am myself. 
 I used to like you when I heard Maria speak 
 of you. I have watched you and thought 
 of you ever since I came here. You are 
 [182]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 necessary to every one, and you are so 
 modest that you know nothing about it. 
 You are a handsome woman, and you are 
 always thinking of other women's good 
 looks." 
 
 Emily gave a soft little gasp. 
 
 " But Lady Agatha," she said. " I was 
 sure it was Lady Agatha." 
 
 " I don't want a girl," returned his lord- 
 ship. " A girl would bore me to death. 
 I am not going to dry-nurse a girl at 
 the age of fifty-four. I want a com- 
 panion." 
 
 " But I am so far from clever," faltered 
 Emily. 
 
 The marquis turned in his driving-seat 
 to look at her. It was really a very nice 
 look he gave her. It made Emily's cheeks 
 grow pink and her simple heart beat. 
 [' 8 3j
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 " You are the woman I want," he said. 
 " You make me feel quite sentimental." 
 
 When they reached Mallowe, Emily had 
 upon her finger the ruby which Lady Maria 
 had graphically described as being " as big 
 as a trouser button." It was, indeed, so 
 big that she could scarcely wear her glove 
 over it. She was still incredible, but she 
 was blooming like a large rose. Lord Wal- 
 derhurst had said so many " things " to her 
 that she seemed to behold a new heaven and 
 a new earth. She had been so swept off 
 her feet that she had not really been allowed 
 time to think, after that first gasp, of Lady 
 Agatha. 
 
 When she reached her bedroom she al- 
 most returned to earth as she remembered 
 it. Neither of them had dreamed of this 
 neither of them. What could she say to 
 [184]
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 Lady Agatha? What would Lady Agatha 
 say to her, though it had not been her fault ? 
 She had not dreamed that such a thing could 
 be possible. How could &he, oh, how could 
 she? 
 
 She was standing in the middle of her 
 room with clasped hands. There was a 
 knock upon the door, and Lady Agatha 
 herself came to her. 
 
 What had occurred ? Something. It 
 was to be seen in the girl's eyes, and in a 
 certain delicate shyness in her manner. 
 
 " Something very nice has happened," she 
 said. 
 
 " Something nice ? " repeated Emily. 
 
 Lady Agatha sat down. The letter from 
 Curzon Street was in her hand half unfolded. 
 
 "I have had a letter from mamma. It 
 seems almost bad taste to speak of it so
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 soon, but we have talked to each other so 
 much, and you are so kind, that I want to 
 tell you myself. Sir Bruce Norman has 
 been to talk to papa about about me." 
 
 Emily felt that her cup filled to the brim 
 at the moment. 
 
 " He is in England again ? " 
 
 Agatha nodded gently. 
 
 " He only went away to well, to test 
 his own feelings before he spoke. Mamma 
 is delighted with him. I am going home 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Emily made a little swoop forward. 
 
 u You always liked him ? " she said. 
 
 Lady Agatha's delicate mounting colour 
 was adorable. 
 
 " I was quite unhappy" she owned, and 
 hid her lovely face in her hands.
 
 THE MAKING of a MARCHIONESS 
 
 In the morning-room Lord Walderhurst 
 was talking to Lady Maria. 
 
 u You need not give Emily Fox-Seton any 
 more clothes, Maria," he said. " I am go- 
 ing to supply her in future. I have asked 
 her to marry me." 
 
 Lady Maria lightly gasped, and then began 
 to laugh. 
 
 " Well, James," she said, " you have cer- 
 tainly much more sense than most men of 
 your rank and age."
 
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