'Of course that gave one no clue. I think people ought to give one some clue that one may know what to put on. However, I thought I could not go far wrong in black; never too smart, and always smart enough, you know.' Peggy assents, and, as she does so, a trivial unbelieving wonder crosses her mind as to what the alternative 'toilette,' which Mrs. Evans implies, but upon which the eye of man has never looked, may be. 'And you are no wiser than we?' pursues the vicar's wife interrogatively. 'I wonder at that, living so near as you do. Have not you heard of anybody at all?' with a rather discouraged intonation. 'I am not sure--I think--the Harboroughs----' 'The Harboroughs?' cries the other eagerly. 'Mr. and Lady Betty? Her father died last winter; he was the second duke; succeeded by his eldest son, her brother. The Harboroughs!--and Mr. Talbot, of course?' with a knowing look. 'I do not know,' replies Margaret cautiously; 'perhaps.' 'I am afraid it is more than perhaps,' rejoins Mrs. Evans significantly. 'I am afraid it is----' But her sentence dies unfinished, killed by the frou-frou of silk that announces the approach of a smart woman, and of the white-waistcoated gentleman who has bought the privilege of paying for the silk. Then follows an unencumbered man, whose speech bewrayeth him to be a diplomate, and who has a great deal to say to the smart woman. After five minutes more frou-frou is audible, heralding the approach of a second smart woman--Lady Betty herself this time--with her lawful Harborough stepping somewhat insignificantly behind her. Lady Betty is so exceedingly glad to see the two girls that Peggy asks herself whether her memory has played her false as to the amount of intimacy that existed between them last year. She has not overheard the aside that passed between her ladyship and her husband as she sailed up the long room: 'Who are they? Have we ever met them here before? Are they all one lot?' Nor, indeed, would it ever have entered into the guileless Peggy's mind as possible that a woman who took her by both hands, and smiled into both eyes, could have clean forgotten, not only her name, but her very existence. Once more the folding-doors roll wide, to admit this time, at last, the hostess, Lady Roupell, and her nephew, Freddy Ducane, who--both chronically late for everything--arrive simultaneously; the one still fastening his sleeve-link, and the other hastily clasping her bracelets.