"You see how I'm lectured," Lady Betty said, with the usual accompaniment--"the giggling fugue," as her enemies called it. "Griselda," she said, trying to hide her vexation, "you are very good to look after my behaviour. Poor little me! I want someone, don't I, Mr. Travers? It is news to hear I am 'ill-bred.' What next, I wonder?" But Griselda held her own, and repeated: "I must think it ill-bred in any society to turn other folks into ridicule, and I am quite sure no one can call it kind!" "My dear, may I ask you to mind your own business?" was said _sotto voce_ as Lady Betty rose, declaring it was time for her third glass of water, and Lord Basingstoke escorted her to the inner room, where the invalids assembled to drink the waters. CHAPTER VII. THE VASE OF PARNASSUS. "I am glad to be allowed the chance of speaking to you, Miss Mainwaring," Leslie Travers began. "I wanted to tell you that I have found a clue to your poor little protegee of last evening. I am going to visit her, guided by the boy, to whom she referred me." "That is good news!" Griselda said. "Will you be sure to let me know if I can do aught for her? Oh, I would that I was not dependent on others! I do long to help the poor and sad! I must try once more to get Lady Betty to make me ever so small an allowance. But," she added, with sudden animation, "I have many jewels and trinkets which were my grandmother's, and came to me at her death. Will you sell some for me? I had thought of selling a necklace to pay Mr. Herschel for his lessons; but it will be better to feed the starving than learn music." "You must let me make all due inquiries first, madam," Leslie Travers said. "I do not desire that your charity should be ill-placed, and many beggars' tales are false." "That child was telling the truth!" Griselda said. "I knew it! I felt it!" "You can then judge of truth or falseness by the unerring instinct which is one of the gifts of true womanhood? I would hope--I would venture to hope--that, tried by that instinct, you would trust me, and believe that all I say is true. May I dare to hope it is so?" "Yes," Griselda said, looking straight into the pure, clear eyes which sought hers. "Yes; I could trust _you_." "Could? Change that word to _do_. Say you _do_ trust me." His voice trembled with emotion, and Griselda's eyes fell beneath his ardent admiring gaze. The story of his love was written on his face, and Griselda Mainwaring could not choose but read it. The compact between them might have been sealed then, had not a quiet, gentle voice near pronounced Mr. Travers' name. "Leslie, my dear son!" Griselda turned her face, flushed with crimson, towards Leslie's mother. He hastened to relieve Griselda's evident embarrassment by saying: