The Duchess had brought in with the child an air of added confidence for which an observer would in a moment have seen the grounds, the association of the pair being so markedly favourable to each.

Its younger member carried out the style of her aunt's presence quite as one of the accessory figures effectively thrown into old portraits.

The Duchess on the other hand seemed, with becoming blandness, to draw from her niece the dignity of a kind of office of state--hereditary governess of the children of the blood.

Little Aggie had a smile as softly bright as a Southern dawn, and the friends of her relative looked at each other, according to a fashion frequent in Mrs.Brookenham's drawing-room, in free exchange of their happy impression.

Mr.Mitchett was none the less scantly diverted from his estimate of the occasion Mrs.Brookenham had just named to him.
"My dear Duchess," he promptly asked, "do you mind explaining to me an opinion I've just heard of your--with marked originality--holding ?" The Duchess, her head all in the air, considered an instant her little ivory princess.