“Do tell me, dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Arminell; I have been searching for her everywhere. Don’t tell me she is ill. Though, perhaps, she has had occasion to feel upset. She really must be somewhere, but I am so short-sighted I have not been able to find her. Perhaps she is in a new dress, with which I am not acquainted.” “We are going to send her to town; her aunt, Lady Hermione Woodhead, has been so kind as to invite her, as we remain at Orleigh for the time, and do not think of being in town during the season. It would be a pity for Arminell not to see the Academy this year, and hear the Italian opera, and see some of our friends. So when Lady Hermione offered it, we accepted gladly.” “Very gladly, I am sure,” said Mrs. Cribbage with a knowing twinkle in her eye. “But where is she now?” “I cannot say, I have not looked for her; I have been intent on receiving our friends. Here is Lady Gammon. I must be civil to her.” “How propitious the weather is,” said the high sheriffess, “and how gratified you must be, my lady, to see so many individuals about you in the plentitude of enjoyment.” There are persons, they belong to a certain social class, who always use a long word from the Latin when a short Anglo-Saxon one would do. “What a superabundance of ministers, all, I perceive, of the Established Church; but really, considering the high sheriff was to be here, they might have come in hats, instead of what is vulgarly called wide-awakes. Do you know, my lady, what it is that I really want of you? Can you guess what the favour is that I am going to ask of you? No—I am sure you cannot. Sir Bosanquet and I had a discussion together at breakfast relative to the polarisation of light, and I said to Sir Bosanquet—” (within parenthesis be it noted that before the civil engineer was knighted, his wife always called him hub or hubby)—“I said to Sir Bosanquet, ‘my dear, we will refer the matter to her ladyship who is a very learned lady, and she shall decide.’” “I!” answered Lady Lamerton, “I really do not know. It has—that is—I believe it has—but really I have only the vaguest idea concerning it; it has to do with the breaking up of a ray into its prismatic colours.” “I knew it had to do with prismatic colours, and had nothing to do with polar bears. Polar bears are white.” “Thomson,” said Lady Lamerton aside to a footman, “be so good as to send me Miss Inglett’s maid—to me here, on the terrace.” A few minutes later the lady’s maid came to where my lady was standing; she held a salver with a three-cornered sealed note on it. “Please, my lady, Thomson said your ladyship——” “Yes,” interrupted Lady Lamerton, “what have you got there?” “A note, my lady, Miss Inglett left on her dressing table for his lordship, before she went.” “Went!” “Started, my lady, for town to Lady Hermione Woodhead’s. She said, my lady, she would write for me when I was required.”