"Oh, I like him well enough, but--" She paused and smiled reflectively. "Down at the Simpsons' there was a certain young man--boy he really was--whom we called Rabbit. That was only because of the shape of his mouth, and has nothing to do with the story! I used sometimes to walk home with Rabbit--from evening church, or lawn-tennis parties, and so on, you know." (Were these the occasions on which she was rather late for supper--without incurring Chat's rebuke?) "We girls used to laugh at him because he always began by taking great pains to show you that he didn't mean to flirt--well, at all events, didn't mean to begin the flirtation. If you wanted to flirt, you must begin yourself--that was Rabbit's attitude, and he made it perfectly plain in his behavior. "Rabbit can't have been a very amusing youth to walk home with in the gloaming?" I ventured to suggest. "He wasn't, but then there wasn't much choice down at the Simpsons', you know. Besides, it could be made rather funny with Rabbit. You see, he wouldn't begin because he had such a terror of being snubbed." She laughed in an amused reminiscence. "I think I shall call Lord Fillingford Rabbit," she ended. "It'll be very disrespectful." "Oh, you can't make all the nicknames for yourself!" She paused and added, apparently with a good deal of satisfaction--"Rabbit--and Volcano--yes!" CHAPTER VII THE FLICK OF A WHIP Jenny spent a large part of the winter in Italy, Chat being with her, Cartmell and I left in charge at home. But early in the New Year she came back and then, her mourning being over, she launched out. Without forgetting her father's injunction against spending all her income, she organized the household on a more extensive scale; new carriages and more horses, a couple of motors, and a little electric launch for the lake were among the additions she made. The out-of-doors staff grew till Cartmell had to ask for an estate-steward to take the routine off his shoulders, while Mrs. Bennet and Loft blazed with pride at the swelling numbers of their subordinates in the house itself. Jenny's taste for splendor came out. She even loved a touch of the gorgeous; old Mr. Driver's dark blue liveries assumed a decidedly brighter tint, and I heard her express regret that postilions and four horses were in these days thought ostentatious except for very great national or local potentates. "If I were a peeress, I would have them," she declared rather wistfully. If that were the condition and the only one, after all we might perhaps live to see the four horses and the postilions at Breysgate before we were many months older. By now, there was matter for much speculation about her future; the closer you were to her, the more doubtful any speculation seemed. This was the time of her greatest glory--when she was fresh to her state and delighting in it, when all the neighborhood seemed to be at her feet, town and county vying in doing her honor--and in accepting her hospitality.