"I'll have the black, the very simplest that there can be, if you know of one of your hands who could make it for me. I'll leave it entirely to you." Gladys was delighted, and then her large prominent eyes grew haunted and wistful. "I'd like awfully to talk to you to-night, Kitten," she said. "May I come to your room?" Permission was given, and they all went to supper. It was exactly as Katherine had described it that afternoon, and Mr. Prodgers was there in his best frock coat, more full of what Miss Ethel Bush called "swank" mixed with discomfort than Katherine had ever known him. If she had not felt so deeply that these people were her own flesh and blood, she could have been amused by the whole thing. Nothing could equal the condescension of Miss Cawber. Lady Garribardine's name was not entirely unknown to her--although, to be sure, it was not in the same class as that of the Duchess of Dashington, Lady Hebe Vermont or any of the "smart set"--but still it had chanced once now and then to have appeared in the society column of the _Flare_, she rather thought as the patroness of some dull old political thing--and yes--more recently in connection with those _tableaux vivants_, which Miss Cawber was dying to hear the details of; perhaps Katherine could gratify his need? "Did Hebe Vermont look a dream as Sicchy and Lord St. Aldens as Cupid? My! they must have been a pair! I always do say to Fred when we meet them at church parade of a Sunday that they are the real thing." Katherine for once took up the gauntlet, while one of her sphinxlike smiles hovered about her mouth. "_Lady_ Hebe Vermont played Psyche--if that is who you mean by 'Sicchy'--but who is Lord St. Aldens, Mabel? Mr. John St. Aldens, who acted Cupid, is an 'Honourable'; he is a Baron's son, his father is Lord Hexam." Mabel reddened; while maintaining for the most part a rather chilling silence with her, Katherine had never before deliberately crossed swords. She felt indignant! A paid companion to try to make her look foolish before the others! She who had never done a stroke of work even in a business house in her life! She would have to put this future sister-in-law in her place, and no mistake! Her manner plainly showed that Katherine was in disgrace, as she answered loftily: "Really, I ought to know--My father was a great friend of his father, and often went to their place." "In what capacity, Mabel?" Katherine smiled. "We none of us remember your father, but Liv and Dev told me once when I asked them that he had been an under-clerk at Canford and Crin's--the St. Alden solicitors--and then passed the examinations. From what I've learned about his sort of people by living among them for a month, I don't expect Lord Hexam was very intimate with Mr. Cawber--but we are all acquainted in the same way, aren't we, Tild? You remember hearing of this family from mother's father, who was their butcher for the river house at Maidenhead."