Then presently there came a note from Mrs. Vereker, bidding her a cordial welcome and threatening her high displeasure if Maud's first visit was not to her. To Mrs. Vereker's accordingly they went, and found her in a little cottage, romantically stuck into a cleft in the rocks, with a cataract of honeysuckle tumbling all about a wooden porch, and a view of the mountains which even her adorers, burning to behold herself, were yet constrained to stop and look at. There was a little court, with a wooden railing to guard the edge and geraniums blazing all about it, where a succession of enthusiasts' ponies waited while their owners did homage within. Through that convenient cranny in the foliage the deity, unseen, could spy the approaching visitor and decide betimes whether she would be 'at home' or not. Now she was unquestionably at home and met them at the door with merry greetings. She led them in and showed them her drawing-room, the very home of innocence and refined propriety. 'My husband does not wish me to mope when he is away,' she said, with a charming simple smile; and, to do her justice, in this respect, at any rate, she obeyed his wishes. If the loveliest, freshest bonnets, the daintiest gloves, the most picturesque mountain costumes, a succession of bewildering head-dresses, could rescue a widowed soul from melancholy, Mrs. Vereker had no right to gloom. Nor was hers the only nature that was cheered, for all mankind conspired to assure her that she was the most bewitching of her sex. Turn where she would she found a host of willing courtiers, who thought their assiduous services well rewarded with a single smile. She looked at the world through her beautiful purple eyes, and saw it prostrate at her feet. Even Felicia was captivated, despite her own convictions; and Vernon alone of the party declared her a little ogling hypocrite, and pronounced himself unable to understand how any one could think her even pretty. CHAPTER XVII. A BATTLE ROYAL. Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer----