“Mr. Jones is downstairs in the fur room,” Mrs. Hereford said, “but his men have not come up from Waybrook, and I thought he had better stay with the sables and the silver fox. We must not budge from here until they come, but you can go to Pat if you like, Cinnie. I’ll stay on.” The lady of the house glanced out at the Highland piper and his astoundingly clean sheep on the lawn. “There!” exclaimed Miss Moore. “That’s the tune I mean, Nell! What is it--do you know? Hear it and weep, don’t you think so?” Mrs. Hereford hummed the tune through, accompanied by the melancholic piper from without. “Jolly!” exclaimed Cynthia from her table. “Jolly in your adorable voice! Are there any words that go with it or is it only a sob and a wail?” “Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands oh! Where have you been? They have slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green. He was a braw gallant and he rode for the glove, And the gallant Earl of Moray he was the Queen’s love; And long shall the Lady look from the Castle down To hear the Earl of Moray go stounin’ through the Town.” Mrs. Hereford’s really beautiful voice filled the gift room with its sweetness. “I’ll catalogue wedding presents indefinitely,” said Miss Moore, “if you’ll go on like that. Anyhow, Nell, he is the Queen’s Love all right!” “What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Hereford sharply. “Captain Ramsay. He is crazy about you.” Mrs. Hereford had been comparing her list with that of Miss Moore. She went over to the window, looked out until the red died from her face, and said over her shoulder: “Go on with your list, Cinnie, and don’t be a goose.” The girl wrote diligently for a few moments. Mrs. Hereford returned to the table where the pigskin purse reposed between the red lacquer box, on which the card read: “Maharajah of Singapore,” and a sapphire ring on the other side. “I am awfully sorry for you, Nell, you’ll miss Pat beyond words, shan’t you?” “Yes,” said the lady of the house, “to-morrow night I shall be utterly alone.” “How nice for your husband!” Miss Moore laughed. “Where is poor old Tommy going, anyway?” “Nowhere,” said the lady of the house coolly. “I mean _we_ will be all alone.” Mrs. Hereford was twenty years younger than her husband. She had never asked herself so often before, how she was going to be able to entertain the prospect of endless luncheons and endless dinners opposite Tommy Hereford. “Entirely alone,” she murmured again, walking down the long line of presents. From the splendid pearls she came back to Eric Johnson’s purse and stood near it as though something drew her to that special spot. She had not married Hereford to bring up his children, she was only a little older than they. She had been a sister to them during the five years of her married life and Jack Hereford, who was unpopular with his father, adored his stepmother.