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 the staircase to the Ordeal in the dining-room. The chamber was bright-lit; the dowager was already there, and the Earl, my papa, was momentarily expected. Let me confess to being feverish, and in a twitter of the nerves. One mishap, and all was over. But Miss Prue was the perfection of address; withstood the glare of the candelabra without a twitch; talked to the dowager with the confidential light and charming silliness of a girl; carried herself with the queenly ease of one born to overcome; played her fan often and superbly; laughed archly with her shoulders in the female way, either "doated" on a thing, else thought it "horrid," and slightly patronised my aunt and me as one of equal breed, but as superior in her youth, and infinitely more so in her charms.

The vivacious creature was retailing to the dowager in her engaging fashion the foibles and private history, now for the first time published, of that "Old cat the Marchioness of Meux," when my foolish heart sprang in my throat, for the door was softly opened, and the Earl, my papa, smirkingly minced in.

I plunged headlong into the Ordeal. Sweeping up on the instant to his lordship, I saluted him with a great appearance of delight and eagerness, and sang out then:

"So happy that you've come, my lord; I am dying to present you to my dear Prue Canticle, the very Prue I love so, the dearest Prue in Christendom!"