Grannie's winter in Italy had been a success, and she had a summer unspoiled by bronchial trouble. She wore her velvet gowns and her diamond earrings very often, and had her hair dressed in the latest fashion, with diamond combs gleaming amidst the silvery white, and was quite a splendid Lady Felicia at the friendly dinners and small and early parties to which she accepted invitations from her nieces and very old friends. She had been reproached with burying herself alive, but this year her health was better, and she was going out a little more; chiefly on Vera's account, who was now seventeen, and must really make her début next season. Her nieces told her that Vera was pretty enough to make a sensation, or at any rate to have offers. "If she does, I suppose she will refuse the best of them, as her mother did," Lady Felicia said bitterly; "but whatever happens I shall not interfere. If she chooses to fall in love with the first detrimental who proposes to her, I won't forbid the banns." Perhaps there was more of the serpent than the dove in this protest from Lady Felicia. In long hours of brooding over an irrevocable past it may have been borne in upon her that if she had not harped so much, and so severely, upon the necessity of marrying for money, her daughter might not have been so determined to marry for love. The aunts who praised Vera did not forget to add that she would never be as handsome as her mother. "She may 'furnish,' as the grooms call it," said Lady Helstone, who rode to hounds and bred her hunters; "but she will never be a striking beauty. She won't take away the men's breath when she comes into a ballroom. I'm afraid it may be the detrimentals, the poets, and æsthetes, and impressionist painters, who will rave about her. She is ethereal--she is poetical--and in spite of the man Davis she looks thoroughbred to the points of her shoes. After all, she may make a really good match, and make things much more comfortable for you by and by, poor dear Auntie." "I shall never be a dependent upon my granddaughter's husband," Grannie retorted, with an offended blush. "The pittance which has sufficed for me since my own husband's death, and which has enabled me to keep out of debt, will last me to the end. I require nobody's assistance--and as I have never found blood-relations eager to help me, I should certainly expect nothing from a grandson-in-law; if there is such a thing." * * * * *