"How do you do, Mr. Etheridge? We have managed to entice you from your hermitage at last, eh? How do you do, Miss Etheridge? I hope you didn't feel the cold driving." Stella smiled, and she knew why every approach was screened by curtains. The earl drew the painter aside, and the countess, just laying her fingers on Stella's arm, guided her to the old countess of Longford. "Mr. Etheridge's niece," she said; then, to Stella, "This is Lady Longford." Stella was conscious of a pair of keen gray eyes fixed on her face. "Glad to know you, my dear," said the old lady. "Come and sit beside me, and tell me about your uncle; he is a wonderful man, but a very wicked one." "Wicked!" said Stella. "Yes, wicked," repeated the old lady, with a smile on her wrinkled face. "All obstinate people are wicked; and he is obstinate because he persists in hiding himself away instead of coming into the world and consenting to be famous, as he should be." Stella's heart warmed directly. "But perhaps now that you have come, you will persuade him to leave his shell." "Do you mean the cottage? I don't think anything would persuade him to leave that. Why should he? He is quite happy." The countess looked at her. "That's a sensible retort," she said. "Why should he? I don't know--I don't know what to answer. But I owe him a grudge. Do you know that he has persistently refused to come and see me, though I have almost gone on my knees to him?" Stella smiled. "He does not care to go anywhere," she said. "If he went anywhere, I am sure he would come to you." The old countess glanced at her approvingly. "That was nicely said," she murmured. "How old are you?" "Nineteen," said Stella, simply. "Then you have inherited your uncle's brains," the old lady replied, curtly. "It is not given to every girl to say the right thing at nineteen." Stella blushed, and looked round the room. There were ten or twelve persons standing and sitting about, some of them beautiful women, exquisitely dressed, talking to some gentlemen; but Lord Leycester was not amongst the latter. She was conscious of that, although she scarcely knew that she was looking for him. She wondered which was Lady Lenore. There was a tall, fair girl leaning against the piano, but somehow Stella did not think it was the famous beauty. The clock on the bracket struck eight, and she saw the earl take out his watch and glance at it mechanically; and as he did so, a voice behind her said: "Dinner is served, my lady." Nobody took any notice however, and the countess did not show by sign or look that she heard. Suddenly the curtains at the other end of the room were swung apart, and a tall form entered. Though her eyes were fixed on another part of the room, she knew who it was, and for a moment she would not look that way, then she directed her eyes slowly, and saw that her instinct had not misled her. It was Leycester!