Mrs. Mountstuart admired herself as each one trotted forth in turn characteristically, with one exception unaware of the aid which was being rendered to a distressed damsel wretchedly incapable of decent hypocrisy. Her intrepid lead had shown her hand to the colonel and drawn the enemy at a blow. Sir Willoughby's "in fine", however, did not please her: still less did his lackadaisical Lothario-like bowing and smiling to Miss Dale: and he perceived it and was hurt. For how, carrying his tremendous load, was he to compete with these unhandicapped men in the game of nonsense she had such a fondness for starting at a table? He was further annoyed to hear Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel Patterne agree together that "caricature" was the final word of the definition. Relatives should know better than to deliver these awards to us in public. "Well?" quoth Lady Busshe, expressive of stupefaction at the strange dust she had raised. "Are they on view, Miss Middleton?" inquired Lady Culmer. "There's a regiment of us on view and ready for inspection." Colonel De Craye bowed to her, but she would not be foiled. "Miss Middleton's admirers are always on view." said he. "Are they to be seen?" said Lady Busshe. Clara made her face a question, with a laudable smoothness. "The wedding-presents," Lady Culmer explained. "No." "Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating and triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the satisfaction of the bride." "But there's a worse danger to encounter in the 'on view', my lady," said De Craye; "and that's the magnetic attraction a display of wedding-presents is sure to have for the ineffable burglar, who must have a nuptial soul in him, for wherever there's that collection on view, he's never a league off. And 'tis said he knows a lady's dressing-case presented to her on the occasion fifteen years after the event." "As many as fifteen?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. "By computation of the police. And if the presents are on view, dogs are of no use, nor bolts, nor bars:--he's worse than Cupid. The only protection to be found, singular as it may be thought, is in a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British isles." "Rum?" cried Lady Busshe.