A girl of such striking appearance and obvious affluence might belong to anyone, or become anything in these radical, topsy-turvy days. The mother of a son with broad acres and small income could not but remember that a large proportion of present-day duchesses hail from across the water, but it was a very different matter when the young woman suddenly assumed the personality of the niece of a middle-class spinster resident at the Manor gates. To Mrs Greville, Miss Briskett stood as a type of all that was narrow, conventional, and depressing. As much as she could trouble herself to dislike any woman outside her own world, she disliked the rigid, strait-laced spinster, and was fully aware that the dislike was returned. Miss Briskett invariably declined the yearly invitations which were doled out to her in company with the other townsfolk, satisfied that in so doing she proclaimed a dignified disapproval of the frivolities of the Manor. "Thank goodness, that old cat's not coming!" was Madame's invariable reception of the refusals, but at the bottom of her heart she resented the fact that so insignificant a person should dare to reject her hospitality. "Miss Briskett's niece. Really! How ver-ry interesting!" she drawled, in a tone eloquent of the most superlative indifference. Her easy graciousness of manner became suddenly instinct with patronage, her eyelids drooped with languid disdain. She sauntered round the room, giving a touch here and there, turned over the garments which her maid had laid on the bed ready for Elma's use, and finally sailed towards the door. "We will leave you to rest, then, as long as you think fit. Pray ring for anything you require!" The door closed, leaving Elma to snoodle down on her pillows, with a sigh of relief, while Cornelia lifted her skirt in both hands and danced a pas seul, bowing low towards the doorway, blowing kisses from her finger-tips the while, after the manner of riders in a circus. She pranced and pirouetted, while Elma protested in shocked surprise. It struck her that Cornelia's anxiety as to her own condition had died a remarkably sudden death with the disappearance of Mrs Greville from the room. A pantomimic display was not the best way to ensure quiet and repose, nor was there much sympathy to be read in the expression of the twinkling golden eyes. Elma found herself blushing before their gaze, and guiltily drooping her lashes. "Cornelia, what do you mean?" "Columns, my dear, which sweet little buds like you ought to know nothing about! You lie still, and look pretty, and ask no questions; that's _your_ part in the play! You've got to remember that you've had a shock, and your nervous system's all to pieces. You don't have no pain, nor suffering, and anyone to look at you might think you were quite robust; but just as soon as you make the least exertion, you're all of a flop, and have to be waited on hand and foot!--That's so, isn't it now!"