The New Magdalen

IT is a glorious winter's day. The sky is clear, the frost is hard, the

ice bears for skating.

The dining-room of the ancient mansion called Mablethorpe House,

situated in the London suburb of Kensington, is famous among artists

and other persons of taste for the carved wood-work, of Italian origin,

which covers the walls on three sides. On the fourth side the march of

modern improvement has broken in, and has va ried and brightened the

scene by means of a conservatory, forming an entrance to the room

through a winter-garden of rare plants and flowers. On your right hand,

as you stand fronting the conservatory, the monotony of the paneled wall

is relieved by a quaintly patterned door of old inlaid wood, leading

into the library, and thence, across the great hall, to the other

reception-rooms of the house. A corresponding door on the left hand

gives access to the billiard-room, to the smoking-room next to it,

and to a smaller hall commanding one of the secondary entrances to the

building. On the left side also is the ample fireplace, surmounted by

its marble mantelpiece, carved in the profusely and confusedly ornate

style of eighty years since. To the educated eye the dining-room, with

its modern furniture and conservatory, its ancient walls and doors,

and its lofty mantelpiece (neither very old nor very new), presents a

startling, almost a revolutionary, mixture of the decorative workmanship

of widely differing schools. To the ignorant eye the one result

produced is an impression of perfect luxury and comfort, united in the

friendliest combination, and developed on the largest scale.

The clock has just struck two. The table is spread for luncheon.

The persons seated at the table are three in number. First, Lady Janet

Roy. Second, a young lady who is her reader and companion. Third, a

guest staying in the house, who has already appeared in these pages

under the name of Horace Holmcroft--attached to the German army as war

correspondent of an English newspaper.

Lady Janet Roy needs but little introduction. Everybody with the

slightest pretension to experience in London society knows Lady Janet

Roy.

Who has not heard of her old lace and her priceless rubies? Who has not

admired her commanding figure, her beautifully dressed white hair, her

wonderful black eyes, which still preserve their youthful brightness,

after first opening on the world seventy years since? Who has not felt

the charm of her frank, easily flowing talk, her inexhaustible spirits,

her good-humored, gracious sociability of manner? Where is the modern

hermit who is not familiarly acquainted, by hearsay at least, with

the fantastic novelty and humor of her opinions; with her generous

encouragement of rising merit of any sort, in all ranks, high or low;

with her charities, which know no distinction between abroad and at

home; with her large indulgence, which no ingratitude can discourage,

and no servility pervert? Everybody has heard of the popular old

lady--the childless widow of a long-forgotten lord. Everybody knows Lady

Janet Roy.