they were green and envious! Aunt Cathie was but mortal and a woman.
"I think I will wear the puce silk, after all," she said. "It would be a pity to have brought it, and not wear it at all. And I will wear my amethysts with it—bracelets, brooch, and necklace. Get them out, Arbuthnot."
Cathie spent a memorable evening, and a most delightful one, though there were one or two awkward moments. Lucia, for instance, had clearly told her that Harry was Lord Arbuthnot, and as such she addressed him, just to show she knew. But it appeared that it was the other Harry who was Lord Arbuthnot, and this one was only Mr. Symes. But he had been quite delightful, and he seemed to enjoy immensely her account of a dreadful disturbance there had been in Brixham society a year ago, over the precedence to be taken by the Mayor's daughter, and she overheard him afterwards repeating the history of the crisis to the Duchess, who was as much amused as he had been. Equally agreeable—perhaps even more agreeable—was the reception (it was not less than that) accorded to the puce-coloured silk and the amethysts. She had come down rather late, and conversation ceased altogether for a moment in the drawing-room as she made her shining entrance. But she could not, though conscious of her own splendour, agree with Lucia that the others were scrubby. Lucia herself, for instance, was dazzling in orange chiffon, though it was true she had no lace insertions, but Jiminy (whoever she was) had lace on her pin satin, which Cathie saw at once was quite as fine as hers; and though the Duchess's gown was of the simplest, Aunt Cathie, with her eye acute from recent study of Ladies' Dress, saw that the simplicity of it was somehow different from that of the old speckledy. Her pearls, too, were quite as large as those of Elizabeth's Roman set, though there were only two rows of them, but awe seized Cathie at the thought that perhaps these were real. But a little embarrassing, again, was the discovery at the conclusion of the story about the Mayor's daughter, which she told at some length to Harry, who was on her left, that while she had been talking three of her wine-glasses had been filled to the brim with sherry, hock, and champagne respectively. For the moment it made her quite hot; it looked so greedy.
"Oh, see what they've done while I have been talking," she said reproachfully to Mr. Symes.
