Nell of Shorne Mills

Drake glanced toward Nell, saw that she was surrounded, exchanged a

smile with her, then went off with Sir William to the smoking room. They

were in the middle of their cigars, and talking cattle and horses, when

Drake heard a carriage drive up.

"That's the Chesney people, I dare say," said Sir William, and

continued to dilate on a new rule which he was anxious that the

Agricultural Society should adopt, and Drake and he discussed it

exhaustively.

Nell had just finished a dance when she saw Lady Maltby hurry across the

room to receive four persons, two ladies and two men, who had just

arrived. It was the belated Chesney party. Their entrance attracted a

good deal of attention, and Nell herself was startled into interest and

curiosity by the appearance of one of the new arrivals. She thought that

she had never imagined--she had certainly never seen--so beautiful a

woman, or one so magnificently dressed.

A professional beauty in all her war paint is somewhat of a rara avis in

a quiet country house, and this professional beauty was the acknowledged

queen of her tribe. Her hair shone like gold, and it had been dressed by

a maid who had acquired her art at the hands of a famous Parisian

coiffeur; her complexion, of a delicate ivory, was tinted with the blush

of a rose; her lips were the Cupid-bow lips which Sir Joshua Reynolds

loved to paint. Naturally graceful, her figure was indebted to her

modiste for every adventitious aid the art of modern dressmaking can

bestow. Nell knew too little of dress to fully appreciate the exquisite

perfection of the _toilette de la danse_; she could only admire and

wonder. It was of a soft cream silk, rendered still softer in appearance

by cobweb lace, in which, as if caught by the filmy strands, as in a

net, were lustrous pearls. Diamonds glittered in the hair which served

them as a setting of gold. Her very gloves were unlike those of the

other women, and seemed to fit the long and slender hands like a fourth

skin.

"How beautiful!" she said involuntarily, and scarcely aware that she had

spoken aloud.

The man who was sitting beside her smiled.

"Like a picture, is she not?" he said. "In fact, I never see her but I

am reminded of a Lely or a Lawrence; one of those full-length pictures

in Hampton Court, you know!"

"I don't know," said Nell. "I've never been there."

"Well, you won't think it a fair comparison when you do see them," he

said; "for there isn't one of them half as beautiful as Lady Luce."