Lord Brayton welcomed them, and there was Lucia, looking more radiantly beautiful than ever, who gave her a charming little butterfly kiss, a cup of tea, hoped Aunt Elizabeth was better, and then began talking to a dozen people all at once in a language which, though certainly English, conveyed nothing whatever to Cathie. She felt stranger than would some survival of the glacial period if it was suddenly brought into a menagerie full of animals evolved a million years later. And the Christian names and nicknames confused her so horribly; the moment she thought that somebody was certainly Tom, he turned out to be the Babe. And Lord Mallington was Harry and also Tubs, so that in a couple of minutes she had forgotten that he was Lord Mallington at all, while there was another Harry whose surname never penetrated her memory. Edgar did all that could be done. He and Lucia introduced her to everybody, so that her own name positively rang in her ears; but beyond that (which she knew already) she had grasped little else, except that Mouse was the Duchess of Wiltshire. Ladies' Dress, with its full-page illustration of the gown she wore at the drawing-room, fixed that in her memory, and Cathie wondered whether she would wear it again here. How interesting if she wore it the same night as she herself was wearing the puce silk, which it so much resembled!
Then somebody—the Babe, she believed—told her that they were going to have a drive to-morrow, and Cathie, putting all her courage on the conversational altar, said loudly and distinctly that she would enjoy that very much. But the drive turned out to be partridges, and even the knowledge that the old speckledy, which had been marvellously renovated by the ironing, was so like to the dress worn by the lady with the small head when walking with the shooters, did not entirely console her for this dreadful mistake. But how could she know that drive meant partridges? She hoped the Babe did not think that she shot, as she had read some ladies did.
All these things went to form the groundwork of Aunt Cathie's reflections, which, though slightly alarming in certain aspects, had a pleasing terror about them. Not for a moment, even when they came into the drawing-room and its brilliant illumination after the dark of the drive, and a tide of guests, already arrived, rose to meet the other tide with which Cathie had come, and they all began talking loudly and simultaneously, did she falter. She gathered, also, that the house was not full even yet, and that
