“Jane,” cried her mother angrily, “don’t stand staring, and if you poke like that I might as well throw all the money into the sea. Try on the hat this minute, and you may tell Madame Mirabel--you--you young woman--that I consider it very impertinent of the person who presides over the department to go away like this; a vast bit of disrespect, and I’ve half a mind to cancel my orders. Hold your tongue, Jane. I would, if it were not that it might hurt the Duchess’s feelings.” * * * * * In spite of Lady Amelia’s censure, it was scarce a fortnight afterwards when a very small page boy brought a very large folded sheet to Madame Mirabel’s shop, marked immediate, which he was enjoined to deliver straight into the hands of Miss Pounce. This document ordered with equal imperativeness and urgency, that Madame Mirabel’s principal woman should instantly proceed to 6a, Queen Street, bringing a selection of heads suitable for Miss Jane Vibart’s wear that night at the masked ball at Hampshire House. “_It is very important that the principal woman should come HERSELF._” This was heavily underlined. “_Lady Amelia Vibart must insist on her personal attendance._” “Hoighty, Toighty,” said Miss Pounce, and stood looking down at the page with one hand on her hip, eyelids drooping, a quizzical smile, and a tilted chin. “And how’d it be if I can’t give up my Duchesses and Marchionesses to whom I’ve been engaged for goodness gracious knows how long? There, trot along, and tell my Lady I’ll do my best, seeing she’s so pressing! Yes, yes. I’ll come. And shut your mouth, little boy, in the name of Heaven, or you’ll be picked up for a frog and brought to the Royal Aquarium.” Number 6a, Queen Street was a small narrow house wedged in between two larger residences; one of those domiciles that seem made for the impecunious fashionable. Miss Pounce serenely preceded Madame Mirabel’s liveried porter who negotiated an alarming array of bandboxes, not without some bumpings, up the narrow stairs, in the wake of the country footman. On the second floor landing she ordered the important chattels to be deposited, and bidding the porter have a hackney in half an hour, stood a monument of composure while the country footman knocked at the panels of the door. There was a clamour within, voices, among which Lady Amelia’s didactic tones could easily be distinguished, objurgations, lamentations, sobs. The footman invited Miss Pounce by a leer to share the joke, knocked louder, and at an exasperated “Come in,” flung open the door. As Pamela entered the long, dingy bedroom a silence fell. The beauty was sitting in an arm-chair by the empty fire-place, her face buried in her hands, evidently in tears; the elder sister was bending over her with a countenance of concern, while in the background stood a frightened-looking elderly maid, her finger to her lip.