The great event of New Year's day had been the advent of the grey wig so beautifully arranged with her ladyship's own snow-white hair, that the whole thing seemed growing together! With her dark, sparkling eyes and jet brows, she now looked an extremely handsome old lady; and Katherine who did not see her until the afternoon when they were alone, was unable to keep a faint, almost inaudible "Ah!" of admiration from escaping, when she first saw her. She was furious with herself and bit her lip, but Lady Garribardine smiled. "You would say something, Miss Bush? Pray speak." Katherine coloured a little; she felt this was one of those slips which she very seldom made, but frankness being always her method, she answered quietly: "I only thought how beautiful Your Ladyship looked--just like the Nattier in the gallery." "You find my grey locks an improvement, then?" "Oh, yes!" "The Nattier was an ancestress of mine.--A French entanglement of a great great-grandfather, which ended, as these affairs are seldom fortunate enough to do, in a marriage all correct with the church's blessing--the husband being most conveniently killed in a duel with another man!--So the then d'Estaire brought her here to Blissington, where she was shockingly bored, poor thing! and died a year or two after producing an heir for him. When I was young, I always went to fancy balls as the charming creature--it is amusing that you see the likeness even now." "It is very striking." "I always felt a great pity for her--transplanted from Versailles and all the joys of the Court, to this quiet, English home--Have you ever read Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, girl?" Katherine had not. "Well, then, you had better read them; there is a good edition in the library. They are, you will find, the most instructive things in English literature. If I had had a son, I would have brought him up upon them. I was reminded of them now by thinking of my twice great-grandmother. Chesterfield always quotes the French nobles of that date as the _ne plus ultra_ of good breeding, and rather suggests that the Englishmen were often boors or blockheads. So although d'Estaire may have satisfied her, the general company could not have done so, one feels." "I would like to see Versailles," Katherine ventured to remark. "You will some day--I may go to Paris after Easter--one must have clothes." Katherine realised this necessity--her own wardrobe would require replenishing by the springtime, but she had not dreamed of Paris.