With a little childish make-believe, the closet was curiously and elaborately adorned for no other eyes than her own. The walls were covered with her patterns, the curtains were draped and looped according to her device. On the chimney-piece were tinted fan-sticks, thread-papers, cock’s feathers, imitation flowers. Her little bird which a farm-boy had caught for her, and her kitten which had strayed into the habitable part of the house from a colony among the ruins, were trained by her to form a happy family. Thus the solitary girl occupied and entertained herself as an imprisoned princess might have sought to improve and beguile the hours, not altogether unhappily, for Lady Bell was clever, her temper was naturally cheerful, and in youth the spirit is elastic, fit to rise again buoyantly after a blow, to build new castles in the air, and to remain uncrushed by mere neglect. Lady Bell had not long time given her to pursue her own course and the even tenor of her way at St. Bevis’s. In the first spring of her stay, about six months after her arrival, the great man of the neighbourhood, Lord Thorold, came down to his place of Brooklands, on the eve of his marriage, accompanied by a large party, including his intended bride and her family, and feasted the public in his house and grounds, thrown open in honour of the occasion. Squire Godwin chose to accept the invitation not only for himself, but for his household. Either he was unwilling to give way to the evil odour in which he was held, or he felt inclined to test it, or he desired to propitiate the magnate. Whatever the motive, the result was the same; an order was issued which even Mrs. Die did not dispute, though she had not been in public save at the quarter sessions, not even so far as to hear Mr. Greenwood preach in the little church close at hand, of which Squire Godwin was the patron, for these dozen years and more. The whole family at St. Bevis’s were to grace Lord Thorold’s wedding rejoicings. CHAPTER VI. FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. “It is an ill wind which blows nobody good,” Lady Bell thought, rising with the alacrity of her years to join the pleasure-seekers. She ransacked her trunks, and went into high dress—the extremely high dress of Lady Lucie’s order and era. Once more Lady Bell put on a peach-blossom coloured paduasoy, a muslin neckerchief drawn through the straps of her white silk stays, and a Rubens hat above her powdered curls, and started abroad to flutter like her companion butterflies in the sunshine and splendour of high life and its holiday.