CHAPTER I
"THE SKIRTS OF HAPPY CHANCE"
On a certain afternoon in March Mrs. Sidney Stimpson (or rather Mrs. Sidney Wibberley-Stimpson, as a recent legacy from a distant relative had provided her with an excuse for styling herself) was sitting alone in her drawing-room at "Inglegarth," Gablehurst.
"Inglegarth" was the name she had chosen for the house on coming to live there some years before. What it exactly meant she could not have explained, but it sounded distinguished and out of the common, without being reprehensibly eccentric. Hence the choice.
Some one, she was aware, had just entered the carriage-drive, and after having rung, was now standing under the white "Queen Anne" porch; Mitchell, the rosy-cheeked and still half-trained parlour-maid, was audible in the act of "answering the door."
It being neither a First nor a Third Friday, Mrs. Stimpson was not, strictly speaking, "at home" except to very intimate friends, though she made a point of being always presentable enough to see any afternoon caller. On this occasion she was engaged in no more absorbing occupation than the study of one of the less expensive Society journals, and, having already read all that was of real interest in its columns, she was inclined to welcome a distraction.
"If you please, m'm," said Mitchell, entering, "there's a lady wishes to know if she could see you for a minute or two."
"Did you ask her to state her business, Mitchell?... No? Then you should have. Called for a subscription to something, I expect. Tell her I am particularly engaged. I suppose she didn't give any name?"
"Oh yes, m'm. She give her name—Lady 'Arriet Elmslie, it was."
"Then why on earth didn't you say so before," cried the justly exasperated Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, "instead of leaving her ladyship on the door-mat all this time? Really, Mitchell, you are too trying! Go and show her in at once—and be careful to say 'my lady.' And bring up tea for two as soon as you can—the silver tea-pot, mind!"