'I shall be an old woman before I appear in society,' said Lesbia, petulantly; 'and I shall be like a wild woman of the woods; for I have seen nothing, and know nothing of the civilised world.' 'You will be ever so much more attractive than the young women I hear of, who have seen and known a great deal too much,' answered the dowager; and as her granddaughter knew that Lady Maulevrier's word was a law that altered not, there were no more idle repinings. Her ladyship gave no reason for the postponement of Lesbia's presentation. She was far too diplomatic to breathe a word of her ideas with regard to Lord Hartfield. Anything like a matrimonial scheme would have been revolting to Lesbia, who had grand, but not sordid views about matrimony. She thought it her mission to appear and to conquer. A crowd of suitors would sigh around her, like the loves and graces round that fair Belinda whose story she had read so often; and it would be her part to choose the most worthy. The days are gone when a girl would so much as look at such a fribble as Sir Plume. Her virgin fancy demands the Tennysonian ideal, the grave and knightly Arthur. But when Lesbia thought of the most worthy, it was always of the worthiest in her own particular sphere; and he of course would be titled and wealthy, and altogether fitted to be her husband. He would take her by the hand and lead her to a higher seat on the dais, and place upon her head, or at least upon her letter-paper and the panels of her carriage, a coronet in which the strawberry leaves should stand out more prominently than in her brother's emblazonment. Lesbia's mind could not conceive an ignoble marriage, or the possibility of the most worthy happening to be found in a lower circle than her own. And now it was the end of July, and the season which should have been glorified by Lady Lesbia's _début_ was over and done with. She had read in the society papers of all the balls, and birthdays, and race meetings, and regattas, and cricket matches, and gowns, and parasols, and bonnets--what this beauty wore on such an occasion, and how that other beauty looked on another occasion--and she felt as she read like a spell-bound princess in a fairy tale, mewed up in a battlemented tower, and deprived of her legitimate share in all the pleasures of earth. She had no patience with Mary--that wild, unkempt, ungraceful creature, who could be as happy as summer days are long, racing about the hills with her bamboo alpenstock, rioting with a pack of fox-terriers, practising long losers, rowing on the lake, doing all things unbecoming Lady Maulevrier's granddaughter.