"SOMETHING MARVELLOUS IS GOING TO HAPPEN" In the drawing-room of a house in Berkeley Square, Lady Kirwan--the wife of Sir Augustus Kirwan, the great banker--was arguing with her niece, Mary Lys. The elder lady was tall and stately, and although not aggressive in any way, her manner was distinctly that of one accustomed to rule. Her steady grey eyes and curved, rather beak-like nose gave her an aspect of sternness which was genially relieved by a large, good-humored mouth. At fifty, Lady Kirwan's hair was still dark and glossy, and time had dealt very gently with her. Of the old Welsh family of Lys, now bereft of all its great heritage of the past, but with a serene and lofty pride in its great name still, she had married Sir Augustus, then Mr. Kirwan, in early girlhood. As the years went on, and her husband's vast wealth grew vaster still, and he rose to be one of the financial princes of the world, Lady Kirwan became a very prominent figure in society, and at fifty she had made herself one of the hundred people who really rule it. One daughter, Marjorie, was born to Sir Augustus and his wife, a beauty, and one of the most popular girls in society. "You may say what you like, but I have no patience at all with either you or your crack-brained brother, Mary!" Lady Kirwan exclaimed, with an irritable rapping of her fingers upon a little lapis lazuli table at her side. Mary Lys was a tall girl, dressed in the blue uniform of a hospital nurse. The cloak was thrown back over her shoulders, and its scarlet lining threw up the perfect oval contour of her face and the glorious masses of black hair that crowned it. If Marjorie Kirwan was generally said to be one of the prettiest girls in London--and the couple of millions she would inherit by no means detracted from her good looks--certainly Mary Lys might have been called one of the most beautiful. The perfect lips, graver than the lips of most girls, almost maternal in their gentleness, formed, as it were, the just complement to the great grey eyes, with their long dark lashes and delicately-curved black brows. The chin was broad and firm, but very womanly, and over all that lovely face brooded a holy peace, a high serenity, and a watchful tenderness that one sees in the pictures of the old masters when they drew the pious maids and matrons who followed the footsteps of Our Lord on earth. Her beauty was not the sort of beauty which would attract every one. It was, indeed, physical beauty in perfection, but irradiated also by loveliness of soul. The common-minded man who prefers the conscious and vulgar prettiness of some theatre girl, posed for the lens of the camera or the admiring glances of the crowd, would have said:-- "Oh, yes, she's beautiful, of course! One can't help admitting that. But she's not my style a bit. Give me something with a little more life in it."