Kitty waved the tempting suggestion on one side. “Nothing for me to-day, my dear creature. I’ve brought Lady Selina.” Selina, who had entered, stood and sat down like an automaton with every reason to be dissatisfied with its surroundings, here gave her patroness a steely look of enmity, and then cast down her eyes so that their long eyelashes cast a shadow on her white cheek. Pamela appraised the small set face and Kitty proceeded to expound; “The fact is, Miss Pounce, I am here with Lady Selina for a wedding order.” “Indeed, my Lady.” “Yes, indeed,” cried Kitty, warming to her subject, “the wedding hat, no less, child, and the going away! Oh! And a head for the dinner party I mean to give in honour of the engagement. Princess Augusta has promised to attend. And the wedding is to take place from my house in Hertford Street, Pamela, the very moment May is over. What with my Lady Verney having a feeling about the mourning, and my Lady Anne Day so set about with measles in her nursery, there isn’t anyone as near to this dear girl as myself, if it’s reckoned by old friendship.” Here Kitty paused for breath and after duly waiting for Lady Selina to express some acknowledgments of these handsome sentiments, Pamela, in the young person’s persistent mutism, was fain to remark that there was no one like her Ladyship for kindness, that she knew. And though this was but a deferential murmur, there was conviction in it. Pamela had every reason for this testimony. Kitty glanced askance at the bride’s most unbride-like countenance; she faintly shrugged her shoulders. None of the Verekers had good tempers and she was not going even to notice Selina’s moods. “A wedding hat.” Pamela pondered upon the bride, while her quick brains worked.