her hair, the deadly pallor of her skin. Through it all the sound of
the tennis-balls from below, as they hurry to and fro through the
hair, can be heard. Perhaps it reaches her. She flings herself
suddenly into a chair, and bursts out laughing.

"Let us come back to common-sense," cries she. "What were we talking
of? The marriage of Maurice to this little plebeian--this little
female Croesus. Well, what of the argument--what?"

Her manner is a little excited.

"I, for one, object to the marriage," says Margaret distinctly. "The
child is too young and too rich! She should be given a chance; she
should not be coerced and drawn into a mesh, as it were, without her
knowledge."

"A mesh? Do you call a marriage with my son a mesh?" asks Lady
Rylton angrily. "He of one of the oldest families in England, and
she a nobody!"

"There is no such thing as a nobody," says Miss Knollys calmly.
"This girl has intellect, mind, a _soul!_ She has even money! She
_must_ be considered."

"She has no birth!" says Lady Rylton. "If you are going in for
Socialistic principles, Margaret, pray do not expect _me_ to follow
you. I despise folly of that sort."

"I am not a Socialist," says Margaret slowly, "and yet why cannot
this child be accepted as one of ourselves? Where is the great