"My dear, do you mean it?" His voice quivered with joyful surprise, and the cards slipped from his hands. "Yes, I mean it! But take me quickly before I change my mind! I can sleep at Wyncham, and here I lie awake all night, and my head aches. Take me home and I will try to be a better wife! Oh, Dicky, have I been tiresome and exacting? I did not mean to be! Why do you let me?" She came quickly round the table and knelt at his side, giving no heed to the crumpling of her billowing silks. "I have been a wicked, selfish woman!" she said vehemently. "But indeed I will be better. You must not _let_ me be bad--you _must_ not, I tell you!" He flung his arm about her plump shoulders and drew her tightly to him. "When I get you home at Wyncham, I promise you I will finely hector you, sweetheart," he said, laughing to conceal his deeper feelings. "I shall make you into a capital housewife!" "And I will learn to make butter," she nodded. "Then I must wear a dimity gown with a muslin apron and cap. Oh, yes, yes-a dimity gown!" She sprang up and danced to the middle of the room. "Shall I not be charming, Richard?" "Very charming, Lavinia!" "Of course! Oh, we will go home at once--at once! But first I must procure some new gowns from Marguerite!" "To make butter in, dear?" he protested. She was not attending. "A dimity gown--or shall it be of tiffany with a quilted petticoat? Or both?" she chanted. "Dicky, I shall set a fashion in country toilettes!" Dicky sighed. CHAPTER VII INTRODUCING SUNDRY NEW CHARACTERS Not twenty minutes' walk from Lady Lavinia's house in Queen Square resided a certain Madam Thompson--a widow--who had lived in Bath for nearly fifteen years. With her was staying Miss Elizabeth Beauleigh and her niece, Diana. Madam Thompson had been at a seminary with Miss Elizabeth when both were girls, and they had ever afterwards kept up their friendship, occasionally visiting one another, but more often contenting themselves with the writing of lengthy epistles, full of unimportant scraps of news and much gossip, amusing only on Miss Elizabeth's side, and on the widow's uninteresting and rambling. It was a great joy to Madam Thompson when she received a letter from Miss Beauleigh begging that she and her niece might be allowed to pay a visit to her house in Bath, and to stay at least three weeks. The good lady was delighted at having her standing invitation at last accepted, and straightway wrote back a glad assent. She prepared her very best bedchamber for Miss Beauleigh, who, she understood, was coming to Bath principally for a change of air and scene after a long and rather trying illness.