Blanche was anything but a vain girl; but of course it takes a long time to dress for a Drawing-room, and when mirrors are properly arranged for self-inspection, it requires a good many glances to satisfy ladies as to the correct disposition of “front, flanks, and rear”; so several minutes elapse ere Gingham can be favoured with a private interview, and she passes that period in admiring her young lady, and scanning, with a criticism that borders on disapprobation, the ministering efforts of Rosine, the French maid. A few weeks of London dissipation have not yet taken the first fresh bloom off Blanche’s young brow; there is not a single line to herald the “battered look” that will, too surely, follow a very few years of late hours, and nightly excitement, and disappointments. The girl is all _girl_ still--bright, and simple, and lovely. With all our prejudices in her favour, and our awe-struck admiration of her dress, we cannot help thinking she would look yet lovelier in a plain morning gown, with no ornament but a rose or two; and that Mary Delaval’s stately beauty and commanding figure would be more in character with those splendid robes of state. But Mary is only a governess, and Blanche is an heiress; so the one remains up-stairs, and the other goes to Court. What else would you have? It is difficult for an inferior at any time to obtain an interview with a superior, and nowhere more so than in London. Gingham was secure of Blanche’s sympathy as of her assistance; but although the latter was forthcoming the very instant there was the slightest hesitation perceived in her answer to the natural question, “How are you getting on?” Gingham was deprived of her share of the former by a thundering double-knock, that shook even the massive house in Grosvenor Square to its foundation, and the announcement that Lady Mount Helicon had arrived, and was even then waiting in the carriage for Miss Kettering. “Good-bye, good-bye, Gingham,” said Blanche, hurrying off in a state of nervous trepidation, she scarcely knew why; “I mustn’t keep Lady Mount Helicon waiting, and of course she won’t get out in her train--come again soon--good-bye;” and in another moment the steps were up, the door closed with a bang, and Blanche, spread well out so as not to get “creased,” by the side of stately Lady Mount Helicon, in a magnificent family coach, rich in state-liveried coachman and Patagonian footmen, to which Cinderella’s equipage in the fairy tale was a mere costermonger’s cart.