She looked at Kitty with such beaming kindness that all this latter’s caprices vanished; she cast herself affectionately on Lady Florence’s huge bosom and voted that she was indeed the best and dearest! * * * * * It was agreed between them before the large and jovial lady left the pleasant apartments overlooking the meadows, that she would call early next morning, and report the result of Mrs. Schwellenberg’s “tinking,” since she had been given to understand that Her Majesty would deliver her gracious dismissal that evening, during the process of the Royal disrobing. “You must hold yourself ready, my sweet child, to be at any point considered suitable along Her Majesty’s path during the next few days. By the looks Her Majesty casts on me I am convinced Schwellenberg has kept her word, and prepared the ground ’ere we left Queen’s Lodge. Well, she knew she would not get the rose-point otherwise.” Kitty stood reflecting in the bow-window long after Lady Florence’s chairmen had reeled away with their burden towards Lord Fauconberg’s small house on the hill, which had been placed at their Majesties’ disposal. It could not be said that she had quite so altogether consuming a desire for the post of Lady-in-Waiting since hearing Lady Florence’s talk and gazing on those swollen feet, but, rather than that Susan Verney--dark, overbearing Susan!--should have the advantage, Kitty would have stood on burning ploughshares. She had, thank Heaven, as good health as any lady in the kingdom, a back that was never tired, and a fund of humour and good humour that made her equal to most trials. Moreover she had a fighting spirit, and, she flattered herself, a charm of her own. If she did not get the better of Schwellenberg on the one hand, and ingratiate herself with Royalty on the other, then she was no longer Incomparable Bellairs! Her agreeable reflections were broken in upon by the entrance of my Lord Kilcroney. Now, hot-blooded, red-headed Irishman as he was, it was the rarest thing in the world for this nobleman to be seriously out of temper with anyone, let alone with the wife of his bosom; but, as he flung himself into Kitty’s hired parlour, he was in as irate a mood as he had ever indulged in, and that with his Lady. “Here’s a pretty business!” quoth he, and cast his hat on the table in the middle of the room, very nearly dislodging the glass dome which protected a gold filigree basket containing the most purple plums, the reddest strawberries, the bluest grapes that ever artist in wax produced. “Here’s a pretty to-do!” cried Denis Kilcroney. “There seems indeed to be a to-do!” retorted Kitty. She wheeled round from the window. “But you will condescend to explain the cause perhaps, my Lord?”