The latter (that is, Tommy and Mabel) have been sent to the pantomime by Sir George, and Barbara with her husband have dropped in towards the close of the day to see Lady Monkton, with a view to recovering the children there, and taking them home with them, Sir George having expressed a wish to see the little ones after the play, and hear Tommy's criticisms on it, which he promised himself would be lively. He had already a great belief in the powers of Tommy's descriptions. In the meantime the children have not returned, and conversation, it must be confessed, languishes. Miss L'Estrange, who is present in a cap of enormous dimensions and a temper calculated to make life hideous to her neighbors, scarcely helps to render more bearable the dullness of everything. Sir George in a corner is buttonholing Frederic and saddening him with last accounts of the Scapegrace. Barbara has come to her final pretty speech--silence seems imminent--when suddenly Lady Monkton flings into it a bombshell that explodes, and carries away with it all fear of commonplace dullness at all events. "You have a sister, I believe," says she to Barbara in a tone she fondly but erroneously imagines gracious. "Yes," says Barbara, softly but curtly. The fact that Joyce's existence has never hitherto been alluded to by Lady Monkton renders her manner even colder than usual, which is saying everything. "She lives with you?" "Yes," says Barbara again. Lady Monkton, as if a little put out by the determined taciturnity of her manner, moves forward on her seat, and pulls the lace lappets of her dove-gray cap more over to the front impatiently. Long, soft lappets they are, falling from a gem of a little cap, made of priceless lace, and with a beautiful old face beneath to frame. A face like an old miniature; and as stern as most of them, but charming for all that and perfect in every line. "Makes herself useful, no doubt," growls Miss L'Estrange from the opposite lounge, her evil old countenance glowing with the desire to offend. "That's why one harbors one's poor relations--to get something out of them." This is a double-barrelled explosion. One barrel for the detested wife of the good Frederic, one for the sister she has befriended--to that sister's cost. "True," says Lady Monkton, with an uncivil little upward glance at Barbara. For once--because it suits her--she has accepted her sister's argument, and determined to take no heed of her scarcely veiled insult. "She helps you, no doubt. Is useful with the children, I hope. Moneyless girls should remember that they are born into the world to work, not to idle." "I am afraid she is not as much help to me as you evidently think necessary," says Barbara smiling, but not pleasantly. "She is very seldom at home; in the summer at all events." It is abominable to her to think that these hateful old people should regard Joyce, her pretty Joyce, as a mere servant, a sisterly maid-of-all-work.