It shut the mouths of all the gossips, or rather it afforded a new but less exciting subject of comment, when it was known that Stella Tredgold had gone off on a visit to Steephill. I am not sure that Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay did not feel themselves deceived a little. They had pledged themselves to Stella’s championship in a moment of enthusiasm, stimulated thereto by a strong presumption of the hostility of Lady Jane. Miss Mildmay in particular had felt that she had a foeman worthy of her steel, and that it would be an enterprise worth her while to bring the girl out with flying colours from any boycotting or unfriendly action directed by the great lady of the district; and to find that Stella had been taken immediately under Lady Jane’s wing disturbed her composure greatly. There was great talk over the railing between the ladies, and even, as it became a little too cold for these outdoor conferences, in the drawing-rooms in both houses, under the shade of the verandah which made these apartments a little dark and gloomy at this season of the year. But I must not occupy the reader’s time with any account of these talks, for as a matter of fact the ladies had committed themselves and given their promise, which, though offended, they were too high-minded to take back. It conduced, however, to a general cooling of the atmosphere about them, that what everybody in Sliplin and the neighbourhood now discussed was not Stella’s escapade, but Stella’s visit to Steephill, where there was a large party assembled, and where her accomplices in that escapade were to be her fellow-guests. What did this mean was now the question demanded? Had Lady Jane any intentions in respect to Stella? Was there “anything between” her and either of these gentlemen? But this was a question to which no one as yet had any reply.

Stella herself was so much excited by the prospect that all thought of the previous adventure died out of her mind. Save at a garden party, she had never been privileged to enter Lady Jane’s house except on the one occasion when she and Katherine stayed all night after a ball; and then there were many girls besides themselves, and no great attention paid to them. But to be the favoured guest, almost the young lady of the house, among a large company was a very different matter. Telegrams flew to right and left—to dressmakers, milliners, glovers, and I don’t know how many more. Stevens, the maid, whom at present she shared with Katherine, but who was, of course, to accompany her to Steephill as her own separate attendant, was despatched to town after the telegrams with more detailed and close instructions. The girl shook off all thought both of her own adventure and of her companions in it. She already felt herself flying at higher game. There was a nephew of Lady Jane’s, a young earl, who, it was known, was there, a much more important personage than any trumpery baronet. This she informed her father, to his great delight, as he gave her his paternal advice with much unction the evening before she went away.

“That’s right, Stella,” he said, “always fly at the highest—and them that has most money. This Sir Charles, I wager you anything, he is after you for your fortune. I dare say he hasn’t a penny. He thinks he can come and hang up his hat and nothing more to do all his life. But he’ll find he’s a bit mistaken with me.”

“It isn’t very nice of you, papa,” said Stella, “to think I am only run after because I have money—or because you have money, for not much of it comes to me.”

“Ain’t she satisfied with her allowance?” said the old gentleman, looking over Stella’s head at her elder sister. “It’s big enough. Your poor mother would have dressed herself and me and the whole family off half of what that little thing gets through. It is a deal better the money should be in my hands, my pet. And if any man comes after you, you may take your oath he shan’t have you cheap. He’ll have to put down shillin’ for shillin’, I can tell you. You find out which is the one that has the most money, and go for him. Bad’s the best among all them new earls and things, but keep your eyes open, Stella, and mark the one that’s best off.” Here he gave utterance to a huge chuckle. “Most people would think she would never find that out; looks as innocent as a daisy, don’t she, Katie? But she’s got the old stuff in her all the same.”

“I don’t know what you call the old stuff,” said Stella, indignant; “it must be very nasty stuff. What does your horrid money do for me? I have not half enough to dress on, and you go over my bills with your spectacles as if I were Simmons, the cook. If you had a chest full of diamonds and rubies, and gave us a handful now and then, that is the kind of richness I should like; but I have no jewels at all,” cried the girl, putting up her hand to her neck, which was encircled by a modest row of small pearls; “and they will all be in their diamonds and things.”

Mr. Tredgold’s countenance fell a little. “Is that true?” he said. “Katie, is that true?”

“Girls are not expected to wear diamonds,” said Katie; “at least, I don’t think so, papa.”

“Oh, what does she know? That’s all old-fashioned nowadays. Girls wear just whatever they can get to wear, and why shouldn’t girls wear diamonds? Don’t you think I should set them off better than Lady Jane, papa?” cried Stella, tossing her young head.

Mr. Tredgold was much amused by this question; he chuckled and laughed over it till he nearly lost his breath. “All the difference between parchment and white satin, ain’t there, Katie? Well, I don’t say as you mightn’t have some diamonds. They’re things that always keep their value. It’s not a paying investment, but, anyhow, you’re sure of your capital. They don’t wear out, don’t diamonds. So that’s what you’re after, Miss Stella. Just you mind what you’re about, and don’t send me any young fool without a penny in his pocket, but a man that can afford to keep you like you’ve been kept all your life. And I’ll see about the jewels,” Mr. Tredgold said.

The consequence of this conversation was that little Stella appeared at Steephill, notwithstanding her vapoury and girlish toilettes of white chiffon and other such airy fabrics, with a riviÈre of diamonds sparkling round her pretty neck, which, indeed, did them much greater justice than did Lady Jane. Ridiculous for a little girl, all the ladies said—but yet impressive more or less, and suggestive of illimitable wealth on the part of the foolish old man, who, quite unaware what was suitable, bedizened his little daughter like that. And Stella was excited by her diamonds and by the circumstances, and the fact that she was the youngest there, and the most fun; for who would expect fun from portly matrons or weather-beaten middle age, like Lady Jane’s? To do her justice, she never or hardly ever thought, as she might very well have done, that she was the prettiest little person in the party. On the contrary, she was a little disposed to be envious of Lady Mary, the niece of Lady Jane and sister of the Earl, who was not pretty in the least, but who was tall, and had a figure which all the ladies’ maids, including Stevens, admired much. “Oh, if you only was as tall as Lady Mary, Miss Stella,” Stevens said. “Oh, I wish as you had that kind of figger—her waist ain’t more than eighteen inches, for all as she’s so tall.” Stella had felt nearly disposed to cry over her inferiority. She was as light as a feather in her round and blooming youth, but she was not so slim as Lady Mary. It was a consolation to be able to say to herself that at least she was more fun.

Lady Mary, it turned out, was not fun at all; neither most surely was the young Earl. He talked to Stella, whom, and her diamonds, he approached gravely, feeling that the claims of beauty were as real as those of rank or personal importance, and that the qualification of youth was as worthy of being taken into consideration as that of age, for he was a philosopher about University Extension, and the great advantage it was to the lower classes to share the culture of those above them.

“Oh, I am sure I am not cultured at all,” cried Stella. “I am as ignorant as a goose. I can’t spell any big words, or do any of the things that people do.”

“You must not expect to take me in with professions of ignorance,” said the Earl with a smile. “I know how ladies read, and how much they do nowadays—perhaps in a different way from us, but just as important.”

“Oh, no, no,” cried Stella; “it is quite true, I can’t spell a bit,” and her eyes and her diamonds sparkled, and a certain radiance of red and white, sheen of satin, and shimmer of curls, and fun and audacity, and youth, made a sort of atmosphere round her, by which the grave youth, prematurely burdened by the troubles of his country and the lower classes, felt dazzled and uneasy, as if too warm a sun was shining full upon him.

“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could spell this any more than Miss Stella—here you are—sesquipedalian. Now, Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.”

Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This was a sort of thing which she understood better than University Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables—quip—I know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all “great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came and placed her arm within his to console him. The brother and sister lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all those fellows, was not the heroine for him.

Lady Jane, indeed, would have been both angry and disappointed had the case turned out otherwise; for her nephew was not poor and did not stand in need of any mÉsalliance, whereas she had planned the whole affair for Charlie Somers’ benefit and no other. And, indeed, the plan worked very well. Sir Charles had no objection at all to the rÔle assigned him. Stella did not require to be approached with any show of deference or devotion; she was quite willing to be treated as a chum, to respond to a call more curt than reverential. “I say, come on and see the horses.” “Look here, Miss Tredgold, let’s have a stroll before lunch.” “Come along and look at the puppies.” These were the kind of invitations addressed to her; and Stella came along tripping, buttoning up her jacket, putting on a cap, the first she could find, upon her fluffy hair. She was bon camarade, and did not “go in for sentiment.” It was she who was the first to call him Charlie, as she had been on the eve of doing several times in the Lottie Seton days, which now looked like the age before the Flood to this pair.

“Fancy only knowing you through that woman,” cried Stella; “and you should have heard how she bullied me after that night of the sail!”

“Jealous,” said Sir Charles in his moustache. “Never likes to lose any fellow she knows.”

“But she was not losing you!” cried Stella with much innocence. “What harm could it do to her that you spent one evening with—anyone else?”

“Knows better than that, does Lottie,” the laconic lover said.

“Oh, stuff!” cried Stella. “It was only to make herself disagreeable. But she never was any friend of mine.”

“Not likely. Lottie knows a thing or two. Not so soft as all that. Put you in prison if she could—push you out of her way.”

“But I was never in her way,” cried Stella.

At which Sir Charles laughed loud and long. “Tell you what it is—as bad as Lottie. Can’t have you talk to fellows like Uppin’ton. Great prig, not your sort at all. Call myself your sort, Stella, eh? Since anyhow you’re mine.”

“I don’t know what you mean by your sort,” Stella said, but with downcast eyes.

“Yes, you do—chums—always get on. Awf’lly fond of you, don’t you know? Eh? Marriage awf’l bore, but can’t be helped. Look here! Off to India if you won’t have me,” the wooer said.

“Oh, Charlie!”

“Fact; can’t stand it here any more—except you’d have me, Stella.”

“I don’t want,” said Stella with a little gasp, “to have any one—just now.”

“Not surprised,” said Sir Charles, “marriage awf’l bore. Glad regiment’s ordered off; no good in England now. Knock about in India; get knocked on the head most likely. No fault of yours—if you can’t cotton to it, little girl.”

“Oh, Charlie! but I don’t want you to go to India,” Stella said.

“Well, then, keep me here. There are no two ways of it,” he said more distinctly than usual, holding out his hand.

And Stella put her hand with a little hesitation into his. She was not quite sure she wanted to do so. But she did not want him to go away. And though marriage was an awf’l bore, the preparations for it were “great fun.” And he was her sort—they were quite sure to get on. She liked him better than any of the others, far better than that prig, Uffington, though he was an earl. And it would be nice on the whole to be called my Lady, and not Miss any longer. And Charlie was very nice; she liked him far better than any of the others. That was the refrain of Stella’s thoughts as she turned over in her own room all she had done. To be married at twenty is pleasant too. Some girls nowadays do not marry till thirty or near it, when they are almost decrepit. That was what would happen to Kate; if, indeed, she ever married at all. Stella’s mind then jumped to a consideration of the wedding presents and who would give her—what, and then to her own appearance in her wedding dress, walking down the aisle of the old church. What a fuss all the Stanleys would be in about the decorations; and then there were the bridesmaids to be thought of. Decidedly the preliminaries would be great fun. Then, of course, afterwards she would be presented and go into society—real society—not this mere country house business. On the whole there was a great deal that was desirable in it, all round.

“Now have over the little prim one for me,” said Algy Scott. “I say, cousin Jane, you owe me that much. It was I that really suffered for that little thing’s whim—and to get no good of it; while Charlie—no, I don’t want this one, the little prim one for my money. If you are going to have a dance to end off with, have her over for me.”

“I may have her over, but not for you, my boy,” said Lady Jane. “I have the fear of your mother before my eyes, if you haven’t. A little Tredgold girl for my Lady Scott! No, thank you, Algy, I am not going to fly in your mother’s face, whatever you may do.”

“Somebody will have to fly in her face sooner or later,” Algy said composedly; “and, mind you, my mother would like to tread gold as well as any one.”

“Don’t abandon every principle, Algy. I can forgive anything but a pun.”

“It’s such a very little one,” he said.

And Lady Jane did ask Katherine to the dance, who was very much bewildered by the state of affairs, by her sister’s engagement, which everybody knew about, and the revolution which had taken place in everything, without the least intimation being conveyed to those most concerned. Captain Scott’s attentions to herself were the least of her thoughts. She was impatient of the ball—impatient of further delay. Would it all be so easy as Stella thought? Would the old man, as they called him, take it with as much delight as was expected? She pushed Algy away from her mind as if he had been a fly in the great preoccupations of her thoughts.