The dowager was not unkind to her niece; for she was too much a woman of the world not to know when she had a good servant, and to rejoice in the fact that she possessed that treasure at the cheapest possible rate. She was not unkind, but she was pitiless. She called Cecil "my dear," and bought her pretty dresses--pretty dresses that were to be had cheap after stock-taking at the West-end haberdashers', dainty gauzes with the bloom off them, and muslins with soiled edges she gave her good food, and persuaded her to take half-glasses of tawny port, which the girl, in her secret soul, thought more nasty than physic; but if Lady Cecil had been dying, Mrs. MacClaverhouse would have come to her death-bed to demand the inventory of the china, and to ask if it were six or eight shell-and-thread pattern salt-spoons that had been intrusted to the parlour-maid for the last dinner-party. For three years Lady Cecil had lived on the dullest side of Dorset Square, and counted the glasses and spoons, and battled with the Marylebone tradesmen, and ridden in the phantom chariot. In all those three years there had been only one break in the drudgery of her life, only one glimpse of sunshine; but then it was such a dazzling burst of light, such a revelation of paradise. Ah, let my pen fall lightly on the paper as I write the story of that tender dream. It was the habit of Mrs. MacClaverhouse to spend as much of her time in visiting as was thoroughly agreeable to her acquaintance. She liked visiting because it was pleasant and cheap; but she was too wise a woman to wear out her welcome, and no one had ever uttered the obnoxious word 'sponge' in conjunction with her name. She was lively and agreeable--rather vulgar perhaps, but then genteel people are permitted to be vulgar--clever, well dressed, of high family, and acknowledged position, and she gave cosy little dinners in the season; so there were many houses in which she and her niece were favourite guests in the cheery winter days when an old country-house is such a paradise. Poor Cecil found herself sometimes looking anxiously after other people's spoons and forks in these pleasant holiday times, or taking a mental photograph of a cold sirloin or a raised pie as it was removed from the breakfast-table; for one of her home duties was to register the appearances of joints and poultry before they descended into the territory of the landlady, who might or might not be honest. Mrs. MacClaverhouse made a point of never quite believing in people's honesty.