When Mistress Kitty had sipped half a glass with great show of relish and rakishness, and Lady Standish, under protest, had sucked a few spoonfuls; when Lady Maria, stuck in the middle of her fourth helping, protested that she really could not finish the tumbler and forthwith began to show signs of incoherence and somnolence; when O\'Hara broke into snatches of song, and Lord Verney began to make calf\'s eyes afresh at the lost Mistress Kitty; when Sir Jasper, hanging round his wife\'s chair, showed unequivocal signs of repentance and a longing for reconciliation: when Stafford himself became more pointed in his admiration of Mistress Kitty and a trifle broader in his jests than was quite consistent with his usual breeding, the little widow deemed it, at last, time to break up the party.

There was a vast bustle, a prodigious ordering and counter-ordering.

"Never mind me," whispered Stafford, ever full of good humour and tact, into Sir Jasper\'s ear, "take your wife home, man, I\'ll sleep here if needs be."

"Not a foot," asserted O\'Hara, apparently quite sober, and speaking with the most pleasant deliberation in the world, "not a foot will I stir from this place, so long as there is a lemon left."

"The cursed scoundrel," cried Lord Verney, babbling with fury as he returned from the stables, "the scoundrel, Spicer, has driven off with my curricle!"

"Then shall we be a merry trio to drink daylight in," said Stafford, and cheered.

"Come, dear Lady Maria," said Kitty. "I shall take care of you. I will give you a seat in my chaise; we shall drive home together."

"Certainly, my dear, certainly," mumbled the Dowager. "Who is that remarkably agreeable person?" she requested to know of Stafford in her prodigiously audible whisper. "My dear," she turned again to Kitty, "I like you wonderfully. I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, but we will go home together."

"Dear, dear Lady Maria!" cried Mistress Kitty, honey sweet. "My Lord Verney, give your arm to your revered relative—mind you lead her carefully," she said, with all the imps in her eyes dancing, "for I fear Mr. Stafford\'s cordial has proved a little staggering—after the night air! And warn her ladyship\'s attendant to be ready to escort us back in my carriage."

Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper\'s absence—that gentleman might even then be heard cursing his sleepy servants in the yard—Mistress Kitty ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and apart at the inglenook.

"My dear," she murmured, "the game is now in your hands."

"Ah, no!" returned the other. "Oh, Kitty, you have been an evil counsellor!"

"Is this your gratitude?" retorted Kitty, and pinched her friend with vicious little fingers. "Why, woman, your husband never thought so much of you in his life as he does to-day! Why, there has never been so much fuss made over you since you were born. Are these your thanks?"

"Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom and tell him all! My foolish endeavour to make him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a rival in my heart!"

"What?" exclaimed the widow, and her whisper took all the emphasis of a shriek. "Fly to his bosom? Then I have done with you! Bring him to his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? Tell him all, forsooth, let him know you have made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think that you had never had an idea beyond ............