Women nowadays keep their good looks much longer than they used to do. The woman of forty, and even the woman of fifty, to-day is not so old as the woman of thirty was--well, thirty years ago. For this reason, no doubt, and because we are becoming so very Continental, the married women reign supreme, and appear to reign for ever. It seems absurd to read in the list of beauties at a ball, the names of mothers and daughters bracketed together; but, in several instances, if the truth were told, it should be the daughter's name, and and not the mother's, which ought to be left out. "Do you know, Mr. Chisholm, I have already paid a visit to your chambers," her ladyship laughed. "Lady Richard Nevill took me up with her, fearing that I should catch cold while waiting in the carriage. She has been staying with us down at Fernhurst. Perhaps you have heard?" "She told me so," the Under-Secretary answered, at once summing her up as a rather vulgar person who had opened the door of society by means of a key fashioned out of gold. "And now I must let you into another secret," she went on fussily. "I took Muriel to the House the other night, and we heard you speak." He smiled. "I don't know what subject you heard me speak upon, Miss Mortimer," he said, turning to the blue-eyed girl in cream, "but I hope you were edified." "I was intensely interested," the young girl said. "Mr. Blackwood," she added, indicating the Honourable Member who had introduced them,--"took us all through the House and showed us the library, the dining-rooms, the Lobby, and all the places that I'd read about. I had no idea the House of Commons was such a wonderful place and so full of creature comforts." "Its wonders are very often tiresome," he remarked with a little smile. "As a show-place, Miss Mortimer, it is one of the sights of England. As a place in which to spend half one's days it is not the most comfortable, I assure you." "Ah!" exclaimed Lady Meldrum; "of course; I quite understand. A man holding such an important position in the Government as you do can have but little time for leisure. I saw you with Lady Richard Nevill just now. She brought you here, of course." "Yes," he admitted. "I go out very little." "And she induced you to come here with her. Charming woman! She was the light and soul of our party at Fernhurst." And as the wife of the Jubilee knight continued to make claims upon Dudley's attention, he was prevented from exchanging more than a few words with the sweet-faced girl against whom he had been so strangely warned by the man who for so many years had been one of his closest friends.