“Do come. We shan't have many people, you know; but I won't let you be dull. And Bill will be there, of course--and you rather like Bill--and a queer old Aunt of ours who knows everybody. So I hope you won't mind.” “I'm sure I shan't,” Sanchia said, and then they shook hands. Bill Chevenix, who had been present, waved himself away from the doorstep. “By-by, my dear,” he said. “You've done bravely by me. Isn't she splendid?” “I like her,” said Mrs. John. “But she's rather unapproachable.” Bill chuckled. “That's her little way. She don't kiss easily.” Mrs. John said that he ought to know. The party was anything but dull. Lady Maria dined with seven other people, the best that could be mustered on short notice--and Sanchia came in at ten o'clock, when the drawing-room was full. She came with an elderly friend, a Mrs. Quantock, whose acquaintance she had made in an omnibus, and renewed at the British Museum. Mrs. Quantock was an authoress by profession, a poetess by temperament. Her emotions, not always under control, consorted oddly with her broad and placid face. She knew Lady Maria Wenman, and it was she who actually performed the introduction, Mrs. John being fast at her stair-head. “I particularly want you to know my dear friend--Miss Sanchia Percival--Lady Maria Wenman. A great heart, Lady Maria, in a frame of steel.” “Oh, indeed,” said Lady Maria. Then, “Come and sit with me, my dear; I've heard about you. But I hope you've left your steels at home.” “If I had a trumpet,” said good Mrs. Quantock, “instead of a penny whistle, all the world should hear what I think of Sanchia.” “Then it's a very good thing you haven't,” said Lady Maria. “The less young ladies are trumpeted in public the better!” Sanchia, during this interchange, had stood smiling and self-possessed; but she was a little fluttered, and looked none the worse for that. Without a word she obeyed the twinkling and puckered old lady, sat by her on the sofa and awaited, her hands folded in her lap, what might be in store for her. She liked the looks of Lady Maria, and had no disrelish for her sharp tongue, nor fear of what might fall to her share when Mrs. Quantock took herself off. She liked the little, deep-set, dark grey eyes, the beaked nose, like the prow of a trireme, and the drawn-in mouth, which seemed to be victim of the astringencies it was driven to utter. And then she liked the signs of race, the disregard of opinion, the keen look which lit on a man or woman and saw him negligible and left him in the road. She had herself an artist's eye for style, and saw in Lady Maria the grand manner. The praise or blame of such as she would be worth having; awaiting either, she felt herself braced. She could envisage the past, collect it, display it in her lap without fear. “Here's my life's work, so far as it has gone. Now beat me, if you will; I'm not afraid of honest blows.” She knew there would be no sham outcries from this high-looking old dame.