much difficulty in locomotion could hanker to find herself in the middle of a distracted crowd. It was fun enough at Warborough if you could roam the garden with a pretty girl; but, to be able to get Lady Caroline from motor to tea-room, and from tea-room back to motor, it was as much as the most sanguine could expect.
"You're a dear boy, Johnny," said she, "and I'll leave your wife all my emeralds when I die."
She turned upon him a rich brown eye, with so melting an expression that he thought she was going to kiss him; and he precipitately fled, explaining that he would just see if his shover had enough in the tank to tootle them down to Warborough, and that he would be back in a jiflfy to help her down the stairs.
But the toUet even of an old woman with a sprained knee is apt to take time — perhaps more time, indeed, than that of agile eighteen. Young Holdfast had disposed of a considerable number of cigarettes; had gazed out upon the passing motors and carriages — quiet Clarges Street in the season has its aristocratic traffic — and, this' pastime palling, had betaken himself aimlessly to his godmother's books. He had mastered the sporting page of the Times (sighing the while for a "Pink 'Un") before that good lady reappeared, radiant in nodding plumes of mauve and rustling silks of the same shade. Such a toilet inevitably demanded the closing of the car; but Johnny resigned himself, with the unalterable placidity characteristic of him, and they set off m a humour to match the incomparable June day. Lady Caroline Pountney loved smart, good-looking
