She pitied Sir Jasper--she did indeed. How was a man, and he so young, to deal with five children, and they with all the difficulties of life before them; character, education and--heavens!--illnesses? Measles and mumps, hectics and whooping coughs, and all the rest of it! “Poor Julia, could she but see now to what her intemperate passion for you has led! If our Julia had a fault--dare I say it, Sir Jasper?--she was a little, leetle inclined to jealousy.” When Kitty returned to Queen’s Lodge, to take up service with Her Majesty, Sir Jasper and she had come to discussing very freely the kind of person who might be regarded as worthy to fill their dearest Julia’s shoes. Kitty was full of suggestions, but, one way or another, the paragons enumerated by the lady were never to the gentleman’s taste. When Lady Selina joined the Court circle, she was, if truth be told, the very last young female whom Kitty could in conscience have selected as a fitting companion for a widower of Sir Jasper’s kidney, or the proper kind of stepmother to his peevish brats. Nevertheless when the idea came, it was with the brilliant conviction of a flash of lightning. Selina Vereker was not dark and masterful like Susan Verney, nor was she soft and warm-hearted, all feminine impulse and charm, like Nan Day. She was a bold piece, Kitty had decided from the first, with a short nose and a short temper, and hair under her powder as blazing as Sir Jasper’s own, and a grey eye that possessed a certain cold, reflective audacity which made Kitty thoughtful. She was a judge of minxes. Withal the creature if not pretty, was mighty attractive; with a little head on a white throat, and a way of tossing it; slim, long limbs like a boy, and a freedom of movement inside her voluminous skirts that was almost unbecoming to her sex. And the tiresome child was in a hundred scrapes, and in Royalty’s black books before she had been a fortnight at her duties. This was unpleasant for Kitty, who had recommended her. And, as she had a kind heart, it filled her with apprehension for the future. For if anything so awful were to happen as that Selina should fall into serious disgrace and be dismissed from Court, what in the world would become of her? So poor, so naughty, and so innocent; with a pair of selfish sisters, and her mother retired to a convent! Why, with Royal displeasure upon her, never could she hope to ally herself to a genteel family! Sir Jasper! Was not the man to her hand? He deserved a wife with some fire in her, after having so long endured the deliquescent Julia, and he deserved too, sad rake that he was, something with a temper of her own to keep him to attention and in his place. “To heel, sir, or beware, there are other fine fellows in the world who are ready to appreciate what you have the bad taste to neglect.” Her mind made up, Kitty set to work with a transparent artifice, to which only the blundering male would fall a prey.