THE new year opened with such a blaze of entertaining that even Hargreaves, who was much more reticent than Hopkins, allowed herself to observe to Jasmine that it really seemed as if her ladyship was determined to find husbands for Miss Lettice and Miss Pamela at last. The atmosphere of the house was charged with that kind of accumulated energy which is the external characteristic of all great charitable efforts. If Lettice had been a new church tower that had to be paid for or if Pamela had been a new wing for a hospital, it would have been impossible to promote a fiercer intensity of desire to accomplish something at all costs no matter what or how. January twinkled like a Christmas tree with minor festivals; but on February 14th—the date was appropriate, although it was not chosen deliberately—Lady Grant was to give a large dance in the Empress Rooms.

"And if it's successful," she told Jasmine, "I daresay I shall give another dance in May."

Jasmine refrained from saying "If it's unsuccessful, you mean," and merely indulged in one of those irritating little smiles.

"Oh, and by the way," her aunt added, "did you see that your old friend Harry Vibart has succeeded to the title?"

She looked at her niece keenly when she made this announcement; but Jasmine was determined not to give her the gratification of a self-conscious blush. Nor was it very difficult to appear indifferent to the news, because, as she assured herself, Harry Vibart, by his readiness to acquiesce in her decree of banishment and by his complete silence for over two and a half years, was no longer of any emotional importance. At the same time, no girl who had been compelled to spend such an empty or rather such a drearily full two years as she had just spent could have helped letting her mind wander back for a moment, could have helped wondering whether if she had behaved differently, everything might not have been different.

"Of course, one does not want to say too much," said Lady Grant, "but one cannot help remembering what great friends he and the girls were some years ago, and really I think ... yes, really I think, Jasmine, it would be only polite if we sent him an invitation."

Jasmine's heart began to beat faster; not on account of the prospect of meeting Harry Vibart again, but with the effort of preventing herself from saying what she really thought of her aunt's impudent distortion of the true facts of the case.

The re-entry of one person from the past into her life was followed by the re-entry of another; for that very afternoon, a bleak January afternoon of brown fog, Hopkins came up to tell Jasmine that Miss Butt had called to see her and to ask where should she be shown? The only people who ever came to see Jasmine were dressmakers with whom she had been negotiating on behalf of her aunt and her cousins, and for whose misfits Jasmine was to be held responsible. These dressmakers were usually interviewed in the dining-room; but Hopkins informed Jasmine that Miss Butt had emphatically declined to be shown upstairs and had expressed a wish to interview her in the servants' hall. Such a request had affronted Hopkins' conception of etiquette, and she was anxious to know what Jasmine intended to do about it. Jasmine was on sufficiently intimate terms with the servants by now to explain at once that Miss Butt and her ladyship were never on any account to be allowed to meet face to face, and she asked Hopkins if she thought that Cook would mind if in the circumstances she made use of the servants' hall.

"No, Miss Jasmine, I don't think she would at all," said Hopkins. "In fact from what I could see of it when I come upstairs, they was getting on very well together. But I didn't think it right to say you'd come down and see her there, until I had found out from you whether you would."

"All right, Amanda, I'll come down at once." Nowadays Jasmine was allowed in her own room to call Hopkins Amanda.

Mrs. Curtis, the cook of 317, Harley Street, was a woman of some majesty, and when she was seated in her arm-chair on the right of the hearth in the servants' hall, she conveyed as much as anyone Jasmine had ever seen the aroma of a regal hospitality mingled with a regal condescension. When Jasmine beheld the scene in the servants' hall she could easily have imagined that she was watching a meeting between two queens. Selina, in a crimson blanket coat, wearing a ruby coloured hat much befurred, with a musquash stole thrown back from her shoulders, was evidently informing Mrs. Curtis of the state of her kingdom; Mrs. Curtis was nodding in august approval, and from time to time turning her head to invite a comment from Hargreaves, who like a lady-in-waiting, stood at the head of her chair, whispering from time to time: "Quite so, Mrs. Curtis." Grouped on the other side of the table and not venturing to sit down, the junior servants listened to the conversation like respectful and attentive courtiers.

As soon as Selina saw Jasmine, she jumped up from her chair and embraced her warmly.

"An old friend come to see you," said Cook with immense benignity.

"Dear Selina!" Jasmine exclaimed. "How nice to see you again!"

"The pleasure's on both sides," said Selina. "Mrs. Vokins is dead."

Jasmine looked at Selina in astonishment. Nothing in the style of her attire suggested such an announcement; in fact, she could not remember ever having seen Selina wear colours before, and that she should have chosen to break out into crimson on the occasion of her friend's death was incomprehensible.

"When did she die?"

"Six months ago," said Selina. "And I went into strict mourning for six months. Last night she appeared to me, as I've just been telling Mrs. Curtis here. She said she was very happy in heaven; told me to stop mourning for her, and pop round to see you."

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Mrs. Curtis demanded from her juniors, who murmured an unanimous and discreet echo of assent.

"Then Mrs. Vokins was saved after all?" said Jasmine. "I remember you used to think that she couldn't be saved."

"Some of us think wrong sometimes," said Selina.

"That's true, Miss Butt," put in Cook.

"Some of us think very wrong sometimes," Selina continued. "And it's perfectly clear Mrs. Vokins was sent down to me to say as I'd been thinking wrong."

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Cook demanded once more.

"'I'm very happy in heaven, Miss Butt,' was her words, and though I hadn't time to ask exackly which of my friends and relations was up there with her, I put it to myself it was unlikely Mrs. Vokins would call and tell me she was very happy unless she shortly expected me to join her. She was never a woman who cared to disappoint anybody. So I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of people I never expected to see again. In fact I've given up the Children of Zion and turned Church of England, which my poor mother always was, until a clergyman spoke to her in a way no clergyman ought to speak, telling her what to do and what not to do, until she turned round in his face and became a Primitive Methodist, where she always poured out the tea at the New Year's gathering. Yes, Mrs. Vokins has been a good friend to me, and she's been a good friend to you, because she put it into my head to come down here and ask you if you'd like to come and live in my rooms at Catford where she used to live, with the use of the kitchen three times a week as per arrangement."

"Dear Selina, it's very kind of you to invite me," said Jasmine, "but ..." she broke off with a sigh.

"Which means you won't come," said Selina. "That I expected; and if Mrs. Vokins hadn't of been in such a hurry, I should have told her as much before she went. She vanished in a moment before I even had time to say how well she was looking. 'Radiant as an angel,' they say; and Mrs. Vokins was looking radiant. 'You certainly are looking celestial,' was what I should like to have said."

"Why haven't you been to see me all these two years?" asked Jasmine.

At this point, Mrs. Curtis, realizing that Jasmine and her friend might have matters to discuss which it would be undignified for them to discuss before the servants, asked the scullery-maid sharply if she intended to get those greens ready, or if she expected herself, Mrs. Curtis, to get them ready. The reproof administered to the scullery-maid was accepted by her fellow-servants as a hint for them to leave Jasmine and her visitor together, and when they were gone Mrs. Curtis, rising from her arm-chair like Leviathan from the deep, supposed that after all she should have to go and look after that girl.

"For girls, Miss Butt, nowadays.... Well, I needn't tell you what girls are. You know."

"Yes, I know," said Selina. "A lot of rabbits."

"That's very true, Miss Butt; a lot of rabbits," echoed Cook solemnly as she sailed from the room.

"Well, why haven't you been to see me, Selina?" Jasmine persisted when they were alone.

"Why haven't you been to see me?"

"How could I? Uncle Matthew never invited me. Surely, Selina, you can understand I didn't want to force myself where I wasn't wanted. The last thing I wanted to do was to give him the impression that I wanted anything from him. He's had plenty of opportunities to ask for me if he wished to see me. My cousins have been over to see him lots of times."

"They have," agreed Selina, grimly.

"And they never brought me back any message."

"That doesn't say no message was sent," said Selina. "You know as well as I know Mr. Rouncivell never sends a letter of his own accord. He can't bring himself to it. I've seen him sit by the hour holding a stamp in his hand the same as I've seen boys holding butterflies between their fingers."

"Well, you could have written to me," Jasmine pointed out.

"I could have," Selina asserted. "And I ought to have; but I didn't. It's not a bit of good you going on talking about what people ought to have done. If we once get on that subject we shall go on talking here for ever. And it's no good being offended with me, even if you won't show a Christian spirit and go and live at Catford. I think you ought to have learnt to forgive by now. I've been forgiving people by the dozen these last two days. And although I don't think I shall, still you never know, and I may go so far as to forgive her," Selina declared pointing with her forefinger at the ceiling to indicate whom she meant.

Jasmine tried to explain that she no longer felt herself capable of taking such a drastic step as going to live in Catford. She found it hard to convince Selina how impossible it was to accept her charity, and she was quite sure that her relatives would not dream of continuing her allowance should she go to Catford.

"In fact, my dear Selina, I think you'd better let me alone. I think that some people in this world are meant to occupy the kind of position I occupy, and I've got hardened to it. I don't really care a bit any more. I have enjoyed seeing you very much, and I hope you will come and see me again. It really isn't worth while for me to make any effort to get away from this. It really isn't."

Selina lectured Jasmine for a while on her lack of Christian spirit—evidently Christian spirit to her mind conveyed something between willingness to forgive and courage to defy—and then rising abruptly she said she must be off. Jasmine heard nothing more from her for some time after this.

Ten days before the dance at the Empress Rooms Sir Hector, for what he insisted was the first time in his life, was taken ill. He was apparently not suffering from anything more serious than a slight bronchial cold, but he made such a fuss about it that Jasmine was ready to believe it really was the first time in his life he had ever been ill. In addition to his apprehensions about his own condition and the various maladies that might supervene, he seemed to think that his illness was something in the nature of a national disaster, like a coal strike or a great war.

"Dear me," said his wife. "I'm afraid it looks as if you won't be at the dance."

"Dance!" shouted Sir Hector as loudly as his cold would let him. "Of course I shan't be at the dance. Even if I'm well enough to be out of bed, which is very improbable, I certainly shan't be well enough to go out. And if I were well enough to go out, which is practically impossible, I certainly shouldn't be well enough to stand about in draughts. No, I shall stay at home. It's a fearful nuisance being ill like this. I can't think why I should get ill. I never am ill."

"It's dreadfully disappointing," said Aunt May soothingly. "We had such a particularly nice lot of young men coming. All dancing men, too, so you wouldn't have had to talk to them for more than a minute. I don't like to put it off. I never think things go so well after they've been put off."

"Oh, no, for goodness' sake don't put it off," said Sir Hector. "Quite enough things have been put off on account of my illness as it is. The Duchess of Shropshire is in despair because I can't go and see her. She can't stand Williamson." Dr. Williamson was Sir Hector's assistant. "Nothing serious, of course, but it creates such a bad impression if a man like me is ill. It shakes my confidence in myself. I can't think where I got this cold."

"People do get colds very often in January," said his wife.

"Other people get colds. I never do. Now what is that horrible mess that Jasmine is holding in her hand? It's no good just feeding me up on these messes and thinking that that is going to cure me: because it isn't."

Jasmine was expecting every minute to hear her aunt regretfully inform her that owing to Sir Hector's condition it would be impossible for her to go to the ball, because somebody would be required to stay at home and look after the invalid. To her surprise nothing was said about this, and she began to turn her attention to a new evening frock. This was a moment when the extra ten pounds she failed to get at Christmas would have been useful. Notwithstanding the surrender of her pride, Jasmine still had a little vanity; and when she took out of her wardrobe the two evening dresses that had served her during the last year, and saw how worn and faded they were, she began to wonder if after all she should not be glad if her aunt settled things over her head by telling her that she could not go.

She was vexed, when she opened her aunt's correspondence that morning and read that Sir Harry Vibart accepted with pleasure Lady Grant's kind invitation for Wednesday, February 14th, to detect herself the prey of a sudden impulse to go to this dance at all costs. She debated with herself whether she should not ask Miss Hemmings, the little dressmaker in Marylebone High Street who made most of her things, to make her an evening frock on the understanding that she should be paid for it next quarter. At first Jasmine was rather timid about embarking upon such an adventure into extravagance; but she decided to do so, and when she had a moment to herself she slipped out of the house and hurried round to Miss Hemmings' little shop. Alas, Miss Hemmings; like Sir Hector, was also in bed with a bronchial cold; she was dreadfully sorry, but quite unable to oblige Miss Grant by the 14th.

"Oh, well, it's evidently not to be," Jasmine decided.

She got home in time to meet Selina coming up the area steps, dressed this time in a brilliant peacock blue blanket coat and an emerald green hat.

"Selina!" exclaimed Jasmine. "You seem to go in for nothing but clothes nowadays."

"You must dress a bit if you belong to the Church of England," said Selina sharply. "It's as different from the chapel as the stalls are from the pit. Don't forget that."

"Well, I've just been trying to get a frock for a dance on Wednesday, but my dressmaker's ill and...." Jasmine broke off; she did not wish to make Selina think that she was in need of money, for she felt that if she did, Selina would immediately offer to lend her some. And if she accepted Selina's charity it would be more than ever difficult to refuse to occupy those three rooms at Catford.

"Well, that's awkward," said Selina. "But I'll lend you anything you want."

"Oh, thank you very much, but it's an evening frock."

"Ah! That I don't go in for, and never shall. Low necks I shall never come to. Do you want to go to this party very much?"

"I do rather," Jasmine admitted.

"There's my bus," said Selina suddenly; and without a word of farewell she vanished round the corner shouting and waving her umbrella.

The next morning, which was Tuesday and the day before the dance, Jasmine received a postcard on which was printed the current price of coal. She thought at first that it had been put in her place by mistake; but looking at it again she saw written in a fine small hand between the Wallsends and the Silkstones Come to Rouncivell Lodge to-morrow at eleven o'clock; and between the Silkstones and the Cobbles the initials M. R.

Aunt May failed to understand how Uncle Matthew could be so inconsiderate as to invite Jasmine to Muswell Hill on the very day before she was giving a dance, and particularly when it would have been advisable in any case that Jasmine should be at home that morning in case her uncle wanted something.

"You must write and tell him you will go later on in the week."

Jasmine agreed to do so, but she added that she should have to give Uncle Matthew a reason for refusing to go and see him, and Aunt May, realizing that such a reason would involve herself with the old gentleman, gave a grudging assent to Jasmine's going that day. Jasmine had difficulty in escaping from Harley Street early enough to be punctual to her appointment with Uncle Matthew, but she managed it somehow, although at one time it seemed as if Sir Hector was wanting so many things which only Jasmine could provide that she should never get away. In the end when Lady Grant was calling 'Jasmine!' from the first landing, Hopkins replied 'Yes, my lady,' and before Lady Grant had time to explain that she did not want Hopkins, her niece was hurrying on her way north.

Jasmine wondered in what gay colours she should find Selina when she reached Rouncivell Lodge; but Selina met her at the gate in her customary black, and advised her sharply to make no allusions to her clothes in front of the old gentleman.

"Why haven't you been to see me before?" Uncle Matthew demanded as the clocks all over the house chimed eleven o'clock.

"I never go anywhere unless I'm asked."

"Well, don't put on your hoity-toity manners with me, miss. Do you expect me, at my age, to come trotting after you? I told your aunt several times I should like to see you."

"She never gave me your message."

"No, I suppose she didn't," said the old gentleman with a grim chuckle. "Now what's all this about wanting a dress for a ball? Do you expect me to provide you with dresses for balls?"

"Of course I don't," said Jasmine, looking angrily round to where Selina had been standing a moment ago. But the yellow-faced housekeeper had gone.

"Well, I've borrowed Eneas' carriage for the day, and I'll take you for a drive. I don't know how that fellow can afford to keep a carriage. I can't. At least, I can't afford to keep a carriage for other people to use, and that's what always happens. Oh, yes, they'd like me to have a carriage, I've no doubt. But I'm not going to have one."

"It's at the door, Mr. Rouncivell," said Selina, putting her head into the room.

Uncle Matthew was so voluminously wrapped up for this expedition that it seemed at first as if he would never be able to squeeze through the door of the brougham; but by unwinding himself from a plaid shawl he managed it.

"Where am I to drive to?" asked Uncle Eneas' gardener in an injured voice. He evidently disapproved of being lent to other people.

"Drive to London," said the old gentleman.

"Where?" the coachman repeated.

"To London, you idiot! Don't you know where London is?"

"London's a large place," said the coachman.

"I don't need you to tell me that. Drive to Regent Street."

The drive was spent in trying to accommodate Uncle Matthew's wraps to the temperature of the inside of the brougham, and in an attempt to calculate how much it cost Eneas to keep a horse, carriage, and coachman. This was a complicated calculation, because it involved deducting from the cost per week not merely the amount saved in artificial manures, but also the amount saved by growing bigger vegetables than would otherwise have been grown.

"But whatever way you look at it," said Uncle Matthew finally, "it's a dead loss!"

When they reached Regent Street, Uncle Matthew told Jasmine to stop the carriage at the first shop where women's clothes were sold.

"Women's clothes?" repeated Jasmine.

"Yes, women's clothes. I'm told you want a gown for a ball to-morrow. Well, I'm going to buy you one."

Jasmine could scarcely believe that it was Uncle Matthew who was talking, and her expression of amazement roused the old gentleman to ask her what she was staring at.

"Think I've never bought gowns for women before?" he asked. "I used to come shopping every day with my poor wife, fifty years ago."

The brougham had stopped at a famous and fashionable dressmaker's, and Jasmine wonderingly followed the old gentleman into the shop.

"I want a gown," said the old gentleman fiercely to the first lady who wriggled up to him and asked what he required.

They were accommodated with chairs in the showroom, and presently a young woman emerged from a glass grated door and walked past them in an Anglo-Saxon attitude.

"You needn't be shy of me," said Uncle Matthew. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather." The show-woman tittered politely at what she supposed was Uncle Matthew's joke.

"Do you like that model?" she said.

"Model?" echoed the old gentleman.

"That gown?" the show-woman enquired.

"Gown?" echoed Uncle Matthew. "What gown?"

"Miss Abels," the show-woman called, "would you mind walking past once more?"

"You don't mean to tell me that what she's wearing is an evening gown you propose to sell me?" asked Uncle Matthew, on whom an explanation of the young woman's behaviour was beginning to dawn. "Why, I never thought she was dressed at all."

The show-woman again tittered politely.

"We consider that one of our most becoming gowns," she said. "So simple, isn't it? Don't you like the lines? And it's quite a new shade. Angel's blush."

"It's very pretty," said Jasmine.

"Well," said Uncle Matthew, "I suppose you know what you want, and I daresay you're right to choose something simple. It's no good wasting money on a lot of frills. How much is that?"

"That gown," said the show-woman. "Let me see. That's a Paris model. Quite exclusive. Thirty-five guineas."

"What?" the old gentleman yelled. "Come out of the shop, come out of the shop!" he commanded Jasmine.

"I never heard of anything so monstrous in my life," he said indignantly to Jasmine on the pavement outside. "Thirty-five guineas! For a piece of stuff the size of three pocket-handkerchiefs! No wonder you can't afford to go to parties! Well, I made a mistake."

"But, Uncle Matthew," Jasmine explained, "I didn't want to go to a fashionable shop like this. There are lots of other shops where evening frocks don't cost so much."

"You can't have a dress made of less than that," he said.

"It isn't a question of amount. It's a question of cut and material."

But the old gentleman could not bring himself to go to another shop. He had suffered a severe shock, and he wished to be alone.

"I'll drive home by myself," he said. "You can get back to Harley Street quite easily from here. Thirty-five guineas! Why, poor Clara's bridal dress didn't cost that."

They were all very curious at Harley Street to know why Uncle Matthew had sent for Jasmine. She did not feel inclined to tell them the real reason, and she merely said that he wanted to see her. Aunt May, however, was feeling bitterly on the subject, and she was suspicious of Jasmine's reticence.

"It's a pity he should have fetched you all that way for nothing," she said. "You had better have done as I suggested and gone the day after the dance. We have all been so busy this morning that poor Uncle Hector has been rather neglected, and I've had to leave a great deal undone which will have to be done this afternoon, and I'm afraid he'll still feel a little neglected, so really, Jasmine, I don't know.... I suppose you'd be very disappointed if you didn't come to the dance, but really I don't know but that it may be necessary for you to stay at home to-morrow and look after Uncle Hector."

"I'll stay at home with pleasure," said Jasmine.

Her aunt looked at her. "Oh, you don't object to staying at home?"

"Why should I? I haven't got a frock fit to wear."

"Not got a frock fit to wear? Really, my dear, how you do exaggerate sometimes! That's a very becoming little yellow frock you wear. A very becoming little frock. You must be very anxious to impress somebody if you are not content to wear that."

Jasmine turned away without answering. She would not give her aunt the pleasure of seeing that the malicious allusion had touched her.

The following afternoon it was definitely decided that Sir Hector was too ill to be left in the hands of servants, and, very regretfully as she assured her, Lady Grant told her niece that she must ask her to stay at home.

"You mustn't be too disappointed, because perhaps I shall give another dance in April or May, and perhaps out of my own little private savings bank I may be able to add something to your March allowance that will enable you to get a frock which you do consider good enough to wear."

Jasmine thought that it would probably annoy her aunt if she looked as if she did not mind staying at home; so she very cheerfully announced her complete indifference to the prospect of going to the dance, and her intention of reading Sir Hector to sleep. Dinner was eaten in the feverish way in which dinners before balls are always eaten. Before starting Pamela called Jasmine into her room to admire her frock, and Jasmine took a good deal of pleasure in telling her that she was not sure, but she thought she liked Lettice's frock better; and to Lettice, whom she presently visited, she said after a suitable pause that she was afraid Pamela's frock suited her better than her own did. Hargreaves and Hopkins, who were both indignant at Jasmine's being left behind, took the cue from her and they both praised so enthusiastically the other's dress to each sister, that the two girls went off to the dance feeling thoroughly ill-tempered.

"What would you like me to read you, Uncle Hector?" asked Jasmine when the house was silent.

"Well, really, I don't know," he said. "I don't think there's anything nowadays worth reading. I don't care about these modern writers. I don't understand them. But if they came to me as patients, I should know how to prescribe for them."

"Shall I read you some Dickens?" Jasmine suggested.

"It's hardly worth while beginning a long novel at this time of the evening."

"I might read you The Christmas Carol."

"Oh, I know that by heart," said Sir Hector.

"Well, what shall I read you? Shall I read you something from Thackeray's Book of Snobs?"

"No, I know that by heart, too," said Sir Hector.

"If you don't like modern writers, and you know all the other writers by heart...."

"Well, if you want to read something," said Sir Hector at last, as if he were gratifying a spoilt child, "you had better read me Mr. Balfour's speech in the House last night."

It was lucky for Mr. Balfour that Sir Hector had not been present when he made the speech, for at every other line he ejaculated: "Rot! Unmitigated rot! Rubbish! The man doesn't know what he's talking about! What an absurd statement! Read that again, will you, my dear? I never heard such piffle!"

In spite of Sir Hector's interruptions, Jasmine stumbled through Mr. Balfour's speech, and she was just going to begin Mr. Asquith's reply when the door of the bedroom opened and Uncle Matthew walked in.

Sir Hector's first instinct when this apparition presented itself was to grab the thermometer and take his temperature; but perceiving that Jasmine was as much surprised as himself and that it was certainly not a feverish delusion, he stammered out a greeting.

"I don't advise you to come into the room, though," he said. "I've got a dreadful cold."

"I thought you were never ill," said Uncle Matthew.

"Well, I'm not. It's a most extraordinary thing. Where I got this cold I cannot imagine," Sir Hector was declaiming when Uncle Matthew cut him short. Jasmine always felt like giggling when Sir Hector was talking to his uncle, because she could not get used to the idea that both Sir Hector and herself should address him as Uncle Matthew. She was still young enough to conceive all people over fifty merged in contemporary senility.

"I thought you were going to a dance," said Uncle Matthew to Jasmine.

"Oh, Jasmine very kindly offered to stay behind and look after me," Sir Hector explained.

"Well, I'll look after you," said Uncle Matthew.

His nephew stared at him.

"Yes, I'll look after you," the old gentleman repeated. "What time do you take your medicine? You had better get along to the dance," he said to Jasmine.

"But Jasmine can't go off to a dance by herself," Sir Hector protested.

"Can't she?" said Uncle Matthew. "Well, then I'll go with her, and Selina shall look after you."

He went to the door and called downstairs to his housekeeper.

"I never heard anything so ridiculous," Sir Hector objected.

"Didn't you?" said the old gentleman sardonically. "I'm surprised to hear that. You've been listening to the sound of your own voice for a good many years now, haven't you?"

Perhaps Sir Hector's cold was worse than one was inclined to think, from his grumbling, for if he had not been feeling very ill the prospect of being left in charge of Selina must have cured him instantly.

"When do you take your medicine?" asked Uncle Matthew.

The old gentleman was evidently determined that whatever else was left undone for his nephew's comfort, he should have his full dose of medicine at the hands of the housekeeper. Selina came into the room and settled herself down by the bed with an air of determination that plainly showed the patient what he was in for. Selina's new and more optimistic creed would probably not tend so far as to include Sir Hector Grant among the saved, and what between the patient's pessimism about his state in this world and Selina's pessimism about his state in the world to come, Jasmine felt that if she was ever going to be appreciated by Uncle Hector she should be appreciated by him that night. Meanwhile Uncle Matthew, after settling his nephew, was hurrying her downstairs.

"I have found you a gown after all," he announced, "and a much prettier gown than anything you could find in London nowadays. If that gown yesterday cost thirty-five guineas, the one I have got for you would have cost a hundred and thirty-five guineas."

"Where is it?"

"Where is it?" her uncle repeated. "Why waiting upstairs in your bedroom, of course, for you to put it on. Now be quick, because I don't want to be kept up all night by this ball. I have not been out as late as this for thirty-one years. I'll give you a quarter of an hour to get ready."

Jasmine ran upstairs to her room, where she found Hargreaves and Hopkins standing in astonishment before the dress which Uncle Matthew had brought her. The fragrance of rosemary and lavender pervaded the air, and Jasmine realized that it came from the frock. Uncle Matthew was right when he said that it was unlike any frock that could be found nowadays.

"Wherever did he get it?" wondered Hargreaves.

"It's beautiful material," said Hopkins.

Jasmine was not well enough versed in the history of feminine costume to know how exactly to describe the frock; but she saw at once that it belonged to a bygone generation, and she divined in the same instant that it was a frock belonging to Uncle Matthew's dead wife, one of the frocks that all these years had been kept embalmed in a trunk that was never opened except when he was alone. It was an affair of many flounces and furbelows, the colour nankeen and ivory, the material very fine silk with a profusion of Mechlin lace.

"Whoever saw the like of it?" demanded Hargreaves.

"Whoever did?" Hopkins echoed.

"It would be all right if it had been a fancy dress ball," said Hargreaves.

"Of course, it would have been lovely if it had been fancy dress," Hopkins agreed.

"Well, though it isn't a fancy dress ball," said Jasmine, "I am going to wear it."

The maids held up their hands in astonishment. But Jasmine knew that the crisis of her life had arrived. If she failed in this crisis she saw before her nothing but fifteen dreary years stretching in a vista that ended in the sea front at Bognor. She realized that, if she rejected this dress and failed to recognize what was probably the first disinterested and kindly action of Uncle Matthew since his wife's death, she should forfeit all claims to consideration in the future. Along with her sharp sense of what her behaviour meant to her in the future, there was another reason for wearing the dress, a reason that was dictated only by motives of consideration for Uncle Matthew himself. It seemed to her that it would be wicked to reject what must have cost him so much emotion to provide. What embarrassment or self-consciousness was not worth while if it was going to repay the sympathy of an old man so long unaccustomed to show sympathy? What if everyone in the ballroom did turn round and stare at her? What if her aunt raged and her cousins decided that she had disgraced them by her eccentric attire? What if Harry Vibart muttered his thanks to Heaven for having escaped from a mad girl like herself? Nothing really mattered except that she should be brave, and that Uncle Matthew should be able to congratulate himself on his kindness.

While Jasmine was driving from Harley Street to the Empress Rooms, she felt like an actress before the first night that was to be the turning-point of her career. She was amused to find that Uncle Matthew had again borrowed the Eneas Grants' brougham, and she could almost have laughed aloud at the thought of Uncle Hector's being dosed by Selina; but presently the silent drive—Uncle Matthew was more voluminously muffled than ever—deprived her of any capacity for being amused, and the thought of her arrival at the dance now filled her with gloomy apprehension. The brougham was jogging along slowly enough, but to Jasmine it seemed to be moving like the fastest automobile, and the journey from Marylebone to Kensington seemed a hundred yards. When they pulled up outside the canopied entrance, Jasmine had a momentary impulse to run away; but the difficulty of extracting Uncle Matthew from the brougham and of unwrapping him sufficiently in the entrance hall to secure his admission as a human being occupied her attention; and almost before she knew what was happening, she had taken the old gentleman's arm and they were entering the ballroom, where the sound of music, the shuffle of dancing feet, the perfume and the heat, the brilliance and the motion, acted like a sedative drug.

And then the music stopped. The dancers turned from their dancing. A thousand eyes regarded her. Lady Grant's nose grew to monstrous size.

"Hullo!" cried a familiar voice. "I say, I've lost my programme, so you'll have to give me every dance to help me through the evening."

Jasmine had let go Uncle Matthew's arm and taken Harry Vibart's, and in a mist, while she was walking across the middle of the ballroom, she looked back a moment and saw Uncle Matthew, like some pachydermatous animal, moving slowly in the direction of her aunt's nose.

THE END

PRINTED BY W M. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

POOR RELATIONS

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

SUNDAY TIMES:
'Poor Relations' is a book that from cover to cover is informed with wit, humour and high spirits, and is yet in its own way a mordant criticism of life."

OBSERVER:
The vitality that is Mr. Compton Mackenzie's tremendous gift makes the book as tonic as a spring day.... In vividness, in sheer colour and variety, Mr. Compton Mackenzie is unmatchable."

WORLD:
One of the drollest books written for years."

DAILY NEWS:
Here is an imagination almost Dickens-like in its abundance."

DAILY CHRONICLE:
Nothing could be more effective, nothing more persistently and ineffably droll."

EVENING NEWS:
It is all rich comedy; it exudes humours on every page."

LAND AND WATER:
Three hundred pages of charming and farcical light-heartedness."

STAR:
A book of high spirits without pause."

DAILY EXPRESS:
Irresistibly funny."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

SYLVIA SCARLETT

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

PALL MALL GAZETTE:
A vital and stimulating work, full of the joy of life and much of its sorrow; and Sylvia Scarlett herself is one of the few really great women in fiction—can indeed hold her own with Beatrix Esmond and Becky Sharp."

PUNCH:
In several respects it is the best thing Mr. Mackenzie has yet done...."

SCOTSMAN:
Amazing dexterity of workmanship—every figure is instinct with vitality."

MORNING POST:
There is no question about the rightness and brightness and delightfulness of the adventures."

LIVERPOOL COURIER:
Amazing inventiveness, Dickens-like prodigality and humour in characterization, youthful daring and clean candour."

LIVERPOOL POST:
"His observation dissects humanity and entrances the student with its amazing cleverness and its astonishing penetration."

ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS:
The inimitable exponent of joyous youth—a certain Cockney humour—as gaily witty as anything the world can show."

BIRMINGHAM POST:
In sheer brilliance may well be thought to excel even its predecessor."

Eve in THE TATLER: "Such a riot and rush of adventures and contrasts, such a breathless scramble, such rainbow emotions...."

Mr. St. John Adcock in THE SKETCH: "Nothing really happens."

Mr. Frank Swinnerton in THE BOOKMAN: "An exhibition of talent perversely employed."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

SYLVIA & MICHAEL

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

EVENING STANDARD:
That originality and depth of thought which we associate with his name. Often startling as are his ideas, they have a way of melting very quickly into and taking their place in the scheme of things, the world of truth and reality."

THE SCOTSMAN:
The book is one which holds the reader in thrall."

DAILY MAIL:
A master story-teller."

GLASGOW HERALD:
As fine as anything that even Mr. Mackenzie has accomplished."

PUNCH:
An exhilarating, even intoxicating entertainment."

LIVERPOOL COURIER:
"One may cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge the brilliancy ... its absorbing interest, its sustained intellectual strength, and the splendour of its moral implications."

ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS:
The colour, the humour, the irony, and the philosophy that make up the compound of his amazing books."

CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE:
Besides achieving a performance in itself no less remarkable than its predecessors, Mr. Mackenzie does something new: he shows his teeth."

Mr. James Douglas in THE STAR: "A literary fake."

Mr. Robert K. Risk in THE SUNDAY TIMES. "It will not permit itself to be read."

Mr. Hugh Walpole in THE NEW YORK SUN: "A new chunk from the erotic adventures of Sylvia Scarlett ... but this does not sound thrilling to everyone...."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

SINISTER STREET

VOLUME ONE

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

TIMES:
We do not wish it any shorter, for it is almost wholly delightful in itself."

STANDARD:
The architecture of the book is superb."

LIVERPOOL COURIER:
A clear and beautiful and enchanting idyll of adolescence."

ENGLISH REVIEW:
A more faithful picture of public school life than anything we know in English fiction."

YORKSHIRE OBSERVER:
Mr. Mackenzie's style is a thing unique among the present writers of English."

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN:
As difficult a task as fiction could undertake; but Mr. Mackenzie's tact and insight have brought him through with brilliant success ... something we would not willingly have missed."

PUNCH:
There are aspects of this book that I should find it difficult to overpraise; its marvellously minute observation, and its humour, and above all its haunting beauty both of ideas and words.... I am prepared to wager that Mr. Mackenzie's future is bound up with what is most considerable in English fiction."

Mr. F. M. Hueffer in the OUTLOOK: "Possibly 'Sinister Street' is a work of real genius—one of those books that really exist otherwise than as the decorations of a publishing season.... One is too cautious—or with all the desire to be generous in the world, too ungenerous—to say anything like that, dogmatically, of a quite young writer. But I shouldn't wonder!"

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

SINISTER STREET

VOLUME TWO

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

NEW STATESMAN:
A wonderful achievement."

MORNING POST:
We never read anything which was so full of the action and atmosphere of a city of youth."

Mr. C. K. Shorter in the SPHERE: "The best modern novel of London life."

NEW WITNESS:
Mr. Mackenzie's fame as a novelist rests to-day upon a secure foundation. Taking it altogether 'Sinister Street' is the biggest thing attempted and achieved in recent fiction."

PUNCH:
The most complete and truest picture of modern Oxford that has been or is likely to be written ... has placed its creator definitely at the head of the younger school of fiction."

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN:
There is not a page that is not in one way or another engaging, and many of them are profoundly moving."

NATION:
It is a book of the greatest possible promise and interest ... puts Mr. Mackenzie in the front rank of contemporary novelists."

Mr. Hugh Walpole in EVERYMAN: "I refuse to look at 'Sinister Street.'"

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

GUY AND PAULINE

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

GLASGOW HERALD:
The charm of this exquisite book seems to play hide and seek with all efforts at description."

LIVERPOOL POST:
The book lies beyond a critic's ungracious blame or his inept attempts at jolting praise."

COUNTRY LIFE:
The most vivid and understanding portrayal of a sensitive girl's awakening to the responsibilities of womanhood that we have yet read."

ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS:
Nothing so alive and feminine as Pauline has been seen inside a book since Jenny Pearl."

SKETCH:
People who love Mr. Mackenzie's art will love 'Guy and Pauline' with peculiar intimacy just because it is so purely an affair of exquisite taste."

BOSTON TRANSCRIPT:
A story about love that is as fascinating as love itself."

LADIES' FIELD:
The spangled dews and freshness of morning, the silver quiet of evening, the magic of moonlight, the song of bird, of wind and river, the fairy charm of all the varying seasons, are all his and he makes them ours; he is the prose Keats of our modern days."

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN:
The future of the English novel is, to a quite considerable extent, in his hands."

ATHENÆUM:
The permanency of a classic for all who value form in a chaotic era."

RUBBER-GROWER:
A book to be avoided—wearisome and effete."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

CARNIVAL

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

ATHENÆUM:
Mr. Mackenzie's second novel amply fulfils the promise of his first.... Its first and great quality is originality. The originality of Mr. Mackenzie lies in his possession of an imagination and a vision of life that are as peculiarly his own as a voice or a laugh, and that reflect themselves in a style which is that of no other writer.... A prose full of beauty."

PUNCH:
After reading a couple of pages I settled myself in my chair for a happy evening, and thenceforward the fascination of the book held me like a kind of enchantment. I despair, though, of being able to convey any idea of it in a few lines of criticism.... As for the style, I will only add that it gave me the same blissful feeling of security that one has in listening to a great musician.... In the meantime, having recorded my delight in it, I shall put 'Carnival' upon the small and by no means crowded shelf that I reserve for 'keeps.'"

OUTLOOK:
In these days of muddled literary evaluations, it is a small thing to say of a novel that it is a great novel; but this we should say without hesitation of 'Carnival,' that not only is it marked out to be the reading success of its own season, but to be read afterwards as none but the best books are read."

OBSERVER:
The heroic scale of Mr. Compton Mackenzie's conception and achievement sets a standard for him which one only applies to the 'great' among novelists."

ENGLISH REVIEW:
An exquisite sense of beauty with a hunger for beautiful words to express it."

ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS:
The spirit of youth and the spirit of London."

NEW YORK TIMES:
We hail Mr. Mackenzie as a man alive—who raises all things to a spiritual plane."

MR. C. K. Shorter in the SPHERE: "'Carnival' carried me from cover to cover on wings."

NEW AGE:
We are more than sick of it."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

TIMES:
We are grateful to him for wringing our hearts with the 'tears and laughter of spent joys.'"

SPECTATOR:
As an essay in literary bravura the book is quite remarkable."

COUNTRY LIFE:
In the kindliness, the humour and the gentleness of the treatment, it comes as near to Thackeray, as any man has come since Thackeray."

DAILY CHRONICLE:
Thanks for a rare entertainment! And, if the writing of your story pleased you as much as the reading of it has pleased us, congratulations too."

GLOBE:
A little tenderness, a fragrant aroma of melancholy laid away in lavender, a hint of cynicism, an airy philosophy—and so a wholly piquant, subtly aromatic dish, a rosy apple stuck with cloves."

GLASGOW NEWS:
Fresh and faded, mocking yet passionate, compact of tinsel and gold is this little tragedy of a winter season in view of the pump room.... Through it all, the old tale has a dainty, fluttering, unusual, and very real beauty."

ENGLISH REVIEW:
All his characters are real and warm with life. 'The Passionate Elopement' should be read slowly, and followed from the smiles and extravagance of the opening chapters through many sounding and poetical passages, to the thrilling end of the Love Chase. The quiet irony of the close leaves one smiling, but with the wiser smile of Horace Ripple who meditates on the colours of life."

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE:
Mr. Mackenzie's book is a novel of genre, and with infinite care and obvious love of detail has he set himself to paint a literary picture in the manner of Hogarth. He is no imitator, he owes no thanks to any predecessor in the fashioning of his book.... Mr. Mackenzie recreates (the atmosphere) so admirably that it is no exaggeration to say that, thanks to his brilliant scene-painting, we shall gain an even more vivid appreciation of the work of his great forerunners. Lightly and vividly does Mr. Mackenzie sketch in his characters ... but they do not on that account lack personality. Each of them is definitely and faithfully drawn, with sensibility, sympathy, and humour."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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SOME PRESS OPINIONS OF

KENSINGTON RHYMES

By COMPTON MACKENZIE

SATURDAY REVIEW:
These are particularly jolly rhymes, that any really good sort of a chap, say a fellow of about ten, would like. Mr. J. R. Monsell's pictures are exceptionally jolly too.... If we may judge by ourselves, not only the children, but the grown-ups of the family will be enchanted by this quite delightful and really first-rate book."

DAILY MAIL:
Among the picture-books of the season, pride of place must go to Mr. Compton Mackenzie's 'Kensington Rhymes.' They are full of quiet humour and delicate insight into the child-mind."

OBSERVER:
Far the best rhymes of the year are 'Kensington Rhymes,' by Compton Mackenzie, almost the best things of the kind since the 'Child's Garden of Verse.'"

ATHENÆUM:
Will please children of all ages and also contains much that will not be read without a sympathetic smile by grown-ups possessed of a sense of humour."

TIMES:
The real gift of child poetry, sometimes almost with a Stevensonian ring."

OUTLOOK:
What Henley did for older Londoners, Mr. Compton Mackenzie and Mr. Monsell have done for the younger generation."

STANDARD:
Our hearts go out first to Mr. Compton Mackenzie's 'Kensington Rhymes.'"

SUNDAY TIMES:
Full of whimsical observation and genuine insight, 'Kensington Rhymes' by Compton Mackenzie are certainly entertaining."

EVENING STANDARD:
Something of the charm of Christina Rossetti's."

VOTES FOR WOMEN:
They breathe the very conventional and stuffy air of Kensington.... We are bound to say that the London child we tried it on liked the book."

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

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THE TALES OF
HENRY JAMES

The Turn of the Screw

The Aspern Papers

Daisy Miller

The Lesson of the Master

The Death of the Lion

The Reverberator

The Beast in the Jungle

The Coxon Fund

Glasses

The Pupil

The Altar of the Dead

The Figure in the Carpet

The Jolly Corner

In the Cage

Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net each

MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

MARTIN SECKER'S
BOOKS

colophon

M C M X X I

NOTE
The prices indicated
in this catalogue are
in every case net

NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET
ADELPHI LONDON

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General Literature

All Things Are Possible. By Leo Shestov. 7s. 6d.

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Daisy Miller.

Death of the Lion, The.

Figure in the Carpet, The.

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Jolly Corner, The.

Lesson of the Master, The.

Pupil, The.

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These typographical errors were corrected by the etext transcriber:
Vokins as a brother-in-law=>Vokins has a brother-in-law
certainly not a ferverish delusion=>certainly not a feverish delusion

image of the book's back cover

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