"So departs forever all my former dreams of womanly loveliness. Loveliness! I have never seen it until to-night. Stella! A star! Yes, she is rightly named, after all. She shone down on me like a star, and I--great Heaven!--was like one bewitched! While she--she made a laughing-stock of me. Compared me with the nag, and treated me like a school-boy too big to be whipped but not too large to be laughed at. "By Jove it is not a thing to be proud of; called to task by a girl--a little slip of a girl not yet a woman! and yet I would not have missed that laugh and the light scorn of those dark eyes, though they lighted up at my expense. Stella----" There was a knock at the door, and his valet, Oliver, entered. Lord Leycester stared at him a moment abstractedly, then roused himself from his reverie. "What is it, Oliver?" "You sent for me, my lord." "Oh, yes! I had forgotten. I will wash and get into my other coat." Oliver passed noiselessly into the other room and assisted his master to change the velvet smoking-jacket for the dress coat, brushed the thick, short-cut chestnut hair into order, and opened the door. "Where are they all?" he asked. "Are any of them in the smoking-room?" "Yes, my lord, Lord Barton and Captain Halliday; the Marquis of Sandford and Sir William are in the billiard-room." Lord Leycester nodded, and went down the stairs across the hall; a servant drew a curtain aside and opened a door, and Lord Leycester entered a small ante-room, one side of which opened into a long-stretching fernery, from which came the soft trip trip of fountains, and the breath which filled the whole atmosphere with a tropical perfume. A couple of footmen in gorgeous livery were standing beside a double curtain, and at a sign from Lord Leycester they drew it apart. Lord Leycester passed through and down a small corridor lined with statuary, at the end of which was another curtain. No passage, or door, or ante-room but was thus masked, to shut out the two things which the earl held as abominations--draught and noise. With the opening of these curtains the large saloon was revealed like the scene on the stage of a theater. It was a magnificent room in keeping with the rest of the place, richly but not gorgeously decorated, and lighted by wax candles shining through faintly hued globes. At one end stood a grand piano in white and ormolu, and a lady was playing and singing, while others were standing round with tea-cups in their hands. Near the fireplace was a table, upon which stood a silver tea equipage, with which the countess was busied.