"And is your Royal Highness also a worshipper at the shrine of budding bucolic beauty? I mean pretty Mrs. Haggard," said the spoilt darling of society, as with a little _moue_ she had indicated Georgie, who entered the room on her husband's arm. The good-natured prince glanced carelessly in the direction indicated; his lazy eyes sparkled as he quickly replied in a tone of reproof: "Pretty is not the word, Mrs. Charmington; if that is the lady you allude to, she is lovely, absolutely lovely, and must count amongst her admirers every member of the human race who has had the happy privilege of beholding her." His Royal Highness rose. Mrs. Charmington hastened to spread the report that his Royal Highness was seriously smitten. "Royals ripen early, I suppose; naturally they age as quickly; perhaps his Royal Highness is arriving at a second childhood, and his heart turns to people of the Dolly the Dairymaid type." But in her first rage Mrs. Charmington had been weak enough to let out that the prince had called young Mrs. Haggard "lovely." Mrs. Charmington had received her own unsigned patent as a recognized beauty from the discriminating admiration of his Royal Highness. The _fiat_ had gone forth, and Julia Charmington had commenced her reign. The Charmington boot and the Charmington Bouquet were very freely advertised. A reproduction of Mrs. Charmington herself decorated the interior of the omnibuses. "Why use dangerous cosmetics when Jones' soap retains youth and health for the complexion, and fosters the development of beauty?" Underneath the portrait was a facsimile of Mrs. Charmington's fashionable scrawl, "I owe you so much, so very much. I have never used any other soap than yours. Very faithfully yours, Julia Charmington." Ill-natured people said that Mrs. Charmington owed a great deal to Messrs. Jones. That the cheque that paid for her well-known turn-out had been signed by the firm; that they had twice paid her dress-maker's bill, when that terrible person had become importunate; that they had settled the account of Monsieur Alphonse, the great _coiffeur_; that they had paid her husband's debts. Some of them, more imaginative, declared that Mrs. Charmington was even a sleeping partner in the saponaceous firm. But the ill-natured people were quite wrong; it was not Messrs. Jones who paid Mrs. Charmington's bills. Little Jack Charmington, her husband, had a snug four hundred a year of his own, which quite sufficed for his modest needs. Mrs. Charmington's graceful letter had been written by her in a moment of good nature, and, it may be said in confidence, at the instigation, some eight years ago, of Big Reginald Haggard, who had looked on the whole matter as a joke, and who had, at that stormy period of his career, been very much in Mrs. Charmington's confidence. The real fact was that Mrs. Charmington kept Messrs. Jones before the public, and those astute advertisers did the same kind office for the lady.