"I will do anything, Lady Linleigh--anything to please her, but if my own mother were living, provided that I loved her myself, I should not be very anxious for any one else to love her." Lady Estelle drew back with something like repulsion in her face. "You are mistaken; you cannot judge. It is only natural that we wish every one to love and admire what we love ourselves." Doris looked at her with laughing eyes. "I cannot see it. I should like every one, for instance, to admire Earle, but I do not care about any one loving him." Lady Linleigh sat in silence for some minutes, then looking up, she said: "We will not argue over it, my dear child; but you will promise to be very nice to the duchess, and try to win her liking?" "Certainly, I promise, Lady Linleigh. Tell me, is the duchess a lady of great importance?" "Yes, she is, indeed, she has much influence at court and in society." "Then I will do all I can, not only to make her like me, but to make her speak favorably of me. Shall you be pleased, then, dear Lady Linleigh?" Yes, she would be pleased; but she owned to herself, with a deep sigh, that it was impossible to arouse any deep or true feeling, any noble sentiment, any generous idea, in the girl's mind. Appeal to her vanity, her interest, her ambition, you were sure to find some answering chord. Appeal to anything else was utterly in vain. Lady Doris laughed to herself as the countess, with something like disappointment in her face, quitted the room. "I have heard the proverb, 'Love me, love my dog,'" she said to herself. "I never heard, 'Love me, love my mother.'" Still, the fact that the coming visitor was a duchess, and a person of very great importance, the wife of one of the wealthiest dukes in England, was not without its influence on her; she resolved, therefore, to be most charming and gracious. She was secretly amused at Lady Linleigh's anxiety over her dress. On the day when the visitors were expected, she said to her: "Take great pains with your toilet this evening, Doris--wear that set of pearls and rubies." "If the duke were a widower," laughed Lady Doris to herself, "I should feel sure that the countess wanted me to make a conquest." She was awed and impressed, in spite of herself, when she stood before the Duchess of Downsbury. The duke she remembered well; she felt no especial awe of him; she could tell, from the expression of his face, that he thought her beautiful. She was accustomed by this time to see men fall prostrate, as it were, before her beauty, but there was something in the high-bred, stately duchess before which my Lady Doris owned herself vanquished. She did not understand the emotion in Lady Linleigh's face as she led her to the duchess. "Mamma," she said in a voice that trembled, "this is Lady Doris Studleigh, my husband's daughter." The jeweled hands of the duchess trembled as they lay for one half minute on the golden head.