Again Lady Beranger has to mourn like her fellow “quality” in “deep kilts”--procured on credit--but this time she has a certain satisfaction in it, which she salves down her conscience with by saying: “Gabrielle was such a queer girl that she _must_ have come to an out-of-the-way end. She was so fast, so _bizarre_, so dreadfully indifferent to the _bienséances_ and the _convenances_, you know, and, dear Marchioness, is it not far better to have drowned herself than to have gone to the bad?” The Marchioness, who has had a _jeunesse orageuse_ herself, shakes her dyed curls solemnly and virtuously. “Very true, dear Lady Beranger. Once a girl has got the bit between her teeth, she is _sure_ to ride to the Devil, and poor dear Gabrielle always struck me as the sort that go the fastest. Well! well! we must console ourselves by the hope that the best thing possible has happened to her. And how long are the weddings put off for?” “Till November. This is not the first time Gabrielle has inconvenienced me, but I suppose we _must_ delay the marriages for two months, or people will talk. All these sort of things entail so much expense too; no sooner has one gone into half-mourning for my dear lost Baby, but there’s the deep black for Gabrielle again. It really seems to me that she only thought of herself, and did not care a bit for the annoyance and inconvenience she caused to others!” CHAPTER II. CARLTON CONWAY. “But love so lightly plighted, Our love with torch unlighted, Paused near us unaffrighted, Who found and left him free. None seeing us cloven in sunder, Will weep, or laugh, or wonder, Light love stands clear of thunder, And safe from winds at sea.” November has set in with its yellow fogs and gloom, and the Berangers are back in Belgrave Square, for the dual weddings come off in another ten days, and the _trousseau_ requires her ladyship’s taste and personal supervision in the finishing touches. Trixy, whose nature is made up of frivolity and bagatelles, and to whom the colour of a dress or the shape of a bonnet are solemn subjects for reflection and consideration, is an enthusiastic shopper, but not so Zai. It is seldom that she can call up courage enough to wade through Elise’s and Worth’s establishments, to devote her whole and sole attention to the important point as to whether her chemisette shall be edged with Valenciennes or Honiton. Zai is studiously learning to care for the man she is going to marry in a few days, and this subject engrosses her to the expulsion of all extraneous matter. Down on her knees beside her little white curtained bed she prays that the gift of “loving” Lord Delaval may be given her. Downstairs, while he sits beside her, the same prayer goes on in her heart, for, born and bred in Belgravia, Zai is the best little thing that ever tried to do her duty towards God and man.