She was so charming and amiable that Mrs. Luscombe pretended to believe her, and said it was _sweet_ of her to take it all off and go out that evening without any adventitious aids to beauty; and this she said in spite of the obvious fact that Flora had evidently put on considerably more than usual. CHAPTER X MISCHIEF The elder Mrs. Wyburn was seated at the gloomy window of her sulky-looking house in Curzon Street one bright day in the season, looking out with some anxiety. "Of course she's late; but if that woman doesn't come I'll never forgive her. She's a silly fool, but at least she does hear what's going on," she reflected. At this moment an old-fashioned-looking victoria drove up, drawn by two large grey horses. In it sat a rather fat and important-looking lady, with greyish red hair, a straight decided mouth, and several firm chins. Her most marked characteristic was her intense decision on trivialities. She was always curiously definite on the vaguest of subjects, and extraordinarily firm and sensible about nothing in particular. Miss Westbury was a rich unmarried woman, with a peculiarly matronly appearance, a good-natured love of giving advice, and with views that obviously dated--one did not know exactly from when. If she had some of the Victorian severities of the sixties, she had also many of the sentimental vagaries of the eighties. The serious business of her life was gossip. In her lighter moments she collected autographs. But her gossip differed from that of the nervous, impatient Mrs. Wyburn in that it was far more pompous and moral, and not nearly so spiteful and accurate. Miss Westbury sailed in--I need hardly say she was dressed in heliotrope--and sat down rather seriously in a large--and the only comfortable--armchair. "My dear Millie, how extremely good of you to come!" exclaimed Mrs. Wyburn. Miss Westbury had been christened Maria, but Millie was the name which she had chosen to be called by her friends. "I am very pleased to come, dear Isabella. To call on you on one of your Wednesdays is, I know, quite hopeless if one has anything to say. To call on any one on a day at home, except as a mere matter of form, I do not consider sensible." "Quite so. Will you have some tea?" Mrs. Wyburn rang the bell rather fretfully. She did not care for Millie's made conversation, and hated her way of gaining time. "I will have what I always have, dear Mrs. Wyburn, at five o'clock, if I may--hot water with one teaspoonful of milk, and a saccharine tablet which I bring with me. I am not a faddist, and I think all those sort of fancies about what is and what is not good for one are exceedingly foolish; but when I go in for a regime, dear, I give it a fair chance. Otherwise there is no sense in it!" She settled herself still more sensibly and decidedly in her chair.