"Then there's a Mr. Sanderson Tom asked. He keeps a school board, or wants the poor to live noble lives in Hackney--somethin' of that sort. Eliza Facinorious and the Baron, Lady Darwin Swift, Mr. Justice Coll, Bradley Bere, the new writin' boy, Lord Saul Horridge, and of course the girls. That's all, I think." "Oh!" said the duchess again. She was rather a damaged duchess, and very impertinent, but Mrs. Chitters was exceedingly glad to get her. She really _was_ a duchess, which, if a woman has no brains, money, or comeliness, is the best thing she can be. She was staying for a week with Colonel Chitters and his wife. The dinner was for the joy of Mr. Mordaunt Sturtevant, who had just taken silk. The most eminent member of the criminal bar, he would have been Queen's Counsel long ago if it had not been for some vague rumours of his early life. A footman opened the door, the duchess her eye-glasses, and Mrs. Chitters the conversation. Mr. Bradley Bere was announced, a youth apparently of seventeen, but of a great name; the rich uncleanness of his life almost rivalling his stories, and both being given undue prominence by his friends on the weekly press. Then came Lord Saul Horridge, a tall melancholy man, whose life was crushed by an energetic mother, whose forte was teetotalism, and whose weakness was omniscience. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burness came in, were effusively greeted by the hostess, and passed on to amuse the duchess. Mrs. Burness, _née_ Marjorie Lovering, had grown too stout for flirtation, and feeling the want of a _métier_, had turned her thoughts to scandal, and achieved a great success. Her husband, a clerk in the War Office, used to say that his wife had a higher regard for truth than anyone he knew--she used it so economically. Mordaunt Sturtevant and Mr. Justice Coll came in arm in arm, and soon after they went down to dinner. Sturtevant had grown two small whiskers, and his keen eyes, shaded by bushy brows, made the duchess want to say "B-r-r-r-r-r!" several times during the evening. The Baroness Facinorious, an ample and various lady, was taken down by Mr. Sanderson, the education person from Hackney, and they discussed the latest thing in Chelsea churches. Bradley Bere told Miss Chitters that poetry was the pursuit of the unattainable by the unbearable, hoping she would repeat it as having come from him. Mr. Justice Coll alone was silent, his whole mind, no large part of him, being given up to the business in hand. When the gentlemen came up to the drawing-room Sturtevant sat down by Mrs. Burness, and they discussed their host and hostess, both of them telling Mrs. Chitters what the other had said later on in the evening.