"I'm sure she's not," replied Lady Thomson, firmly. "My niece, Mrs. Stewart, is a great deal too sensible and well-educated."
"Mrs. Stewart can't honestly say the same for herself," interposed Davison; "she gazed in this very crystal some years ago and certainly saw something in it."
Miss Ormond exclaimed in triumph. Mildred froze. She did not desire the rôle of Society Seer.
"What did I see, Mr. Davison?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing of importance. You saw a woman in a light dress. Perhaps it was Lady Hammerton the collector, originally guilty, you remember, in the matter of the forged Augustus."
"Mildred had only to peep in any glass to see Lady Hammerton, or some one sufficiently like her," observed Meres.
"That idea was started when David Fletcher picked up the fancy picture which he chose to call a portrait of Lady Hammerton," cried Lady Thomson, who was just taking her leave. "Such nonsense! I protest against my own niece and a scholar of Ascham being likened to that scandalous woman."
Cyril Meres smiled and stroked his soft, silvery beard.
"Quite right of you to protest, Beatrice. Still, I'm glad Lady Hammerton didn't stick heroically to her Professor—as Mildred here does. We should never have been proud of her as an ancestress if she had."