Miss Pounce started to re-pack the wreath, with further extraordinary manipulations of tissue paper. She was all bland apology. She craved a hundred pardons. She had made so sure that Mrs. Lafone would be going to my Lady Kilcroney’s ball at the Assembly Rooms to-morrow night. She hoped and trusted it would be as great a success as the Duchess of Hampshire’s last week, and that His Royal Highness would be equally delighted with his entertainment. “Though of course----” here the milliner genteelly tittered, “it was not likely he would be equally demonstrative to his hostess. Was it possible Madame had not heard how His Royal Highness, saying ‘It is a Sovereign’s privilege to salute another Sovereign, and you are Queen of Beauty,’ had kissed her Grace of Hampshire on the cheek after the minuet--Oh, indeed, she had danced like an angel, and looked exceedingly well--before the whole assembly?” “Dear me!” said Mr. Stafford, with humorous meaning. “And I’m sure, I hope,” cried acrid Molly, “that His Royal Highness may be as prodigal of caress to my Lady Kilcroney. Oh!” she cried, clasping her hands, “if that is the kind of fit that’s on him, and he was to kiss my sweetest Kitty before his Royal Mamma and the lovely Princesses, what a monstrous joke it would be.” Here Mr. Stafford stepped forward and opened the door. “Allow me, my dear,” said he, and with what Pamela thought an insufferable free-and-easiness, lifted her bandboxes one after the other into the passage, and literally bowed her out. She stood, snapping her fingers and biting her nails, to linger and listen as long as she dared. Up to this she had after all but poor gleanings to bring back to her Aunt Lydia for the retailing into her patroness’s ear, save, indeed, the sad verification of my Lord’s presence in the Minx’s lodgings. But she saw that she was suspected by one, if not both, of the gentlemen, and however necessary it is for a young milliner to make quite certain that the cords of her boxes are properly tied, it is not an operation that can be prolonged indefinitely. Some phrases she did catch. “The joke of it is that the Prince,” Mr. Stafford was observing. The rest of the remark was lost; it was followed by a crow from Molly Lafone. “Not to be there, after all? Serve her right!” Then in another tone. “Oh, I have the drollest inspiration!” “Hush!” Pounce pricked her ear to its utmost alertness. “I have the drollest inspiration,” said Mrs. Lafone. “Since you say, Tom, you’re poz that His Royal Highness don’t mean to attend my Lady’s ball--and I say it serves her right--why should you not go in his stead?” “Go in his stead?” Mr. Stafford blankly repeated then. “You’re crazy, Molly!”