"I daresay he's a better type of man than Lord Roxmouth," said Cicely. "By the way, Maryllia, that highly distinguished nobleman has spread about a report that you are 'peculiar,' simply because you won't marry him? The very nuns at the Convent have heard this, and it does make me so angry! For when people get hold of the word 'peculiar,' it is made to mean several things." "I know!" and for a moment Maryllia's fair brows clouded with a shadow of perplexity and annoyance--"It is a word that may pass for madness, badness, or any form of social undesirability. But I don't mind! I'm quite aware that Roxmouth, if he cannot marry me, will slander me. It's a way some modern men have of covering their own rejection and defeat. The woman in question is branded through the 'smart set' as 'peculiar,' 'difficult,' 'impossible to deal with'-- oh yes!--I know it all! But I'm prepared for it--and just to forestall Roxmouth a little, I'm going to have a few people down here by way of witnesses to my '-peculiar' mode of life. Then they can go back to London and talk." "They can, and they will,--you may be sure of that!" said Cicely, satirically--"Is this a 'dressed' county, Maryllia?" Maryllia gave vent to a peal of laughter. "I should say not,--but I really don't know!" she replied,--"People have called on me, but I have not, as yet, returned their calls. We'll do that in this coming week. The only person I have seen, who poses as a 'county' lady, is an elderly spinster named Tabitha Pippitt, only daughter of Sir Morton Pippitt, who is a colonial manufacturer, and, therefore, not actually in the 'county' at all. Miss Tabitha was certainly not 'dressed,' she was merely covered." "That's the very height of propriety!" declared Cicely--"For, after all, covering alone is necessary. 'Dress,' in the full sense of the word, implies vanity and all its attendant sins. Gigue says you can always pick out a very dull, respectable woman by the hidecmsness of her clothes. I expect Miss Tabitha is dull." "She is--most unquestionably! But I'm afraid she is only a reflex of country life generally, Cicely. Country life IS dull,--especially in England." "Then why do you go in for it?" queried Cicely, arching her black brows perplexedly. "Simply to escape something even duller,"--laughed Maryllia--"London society and its 'Souls'!" Cicely laughed too, and shrugged her shoulders expressively. She understood all that was implied. And with her whole heart she rejoiced that her friend whom she loved with an almost passionate adoration and gratitude, had voluntarily turned her back on the 'Smart Set,' and so, of her own accord, instead of through her godfathers and godmothers, had 'renounced the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh.'