“In these fair violets of the veins,
    The verdure of the spring remains;
    Ripe cherries on thy lips display
    The lustre of the summer day;
    If I for autumn were to seek,
    I’d view the apples on thy cheek;
    There’s nought could give me pain in thee,
    But winter in thy heart to see.”

—­and she had drawn four pretty little landscapes, which, when reproduced on one sheet by chromo-lithography, looked very neat and elegant, while the fair artist was much gratified to observe her name figuring on the placards at railway-stations or on the boards in front of stationers’ shops, as she drove along Kensington High Street.

But, of course, the crowning achievement of the gifted family was Lady Adela Cunyngham’s novel.  If it was not quite the success of the season, as far as the outer world was concerned, it certainly was the most-talked-of book among Lady Adela’s own set.  Every character in it was identified as somebody or another; and although Lady Adela, as a true artist, maintained that she did not draw individuals, but types, she could not stem the tide of this harmless curiosity, and had to submit to the half-humorous inquiries and flattering insinuations of her friends.  As for the outer world, if it remained indifferent, that only showed its lack of gratitude; for here, there, and everywhere, among the evening and weekly papers (the morning papers were, perhaps, too busy with politics at the time), attention was drawn to Lady Arthur Castletown’s charming and witty romance of modern life.  Alp called to Alp, and deep to deep, throughout Satan’s invisible world; “Kathleen’s Sweethearts” was dragged in (apparently with ten men pushing behind) for casual allusion in “Our Weekly Note-book;” Lady Arthur’s smart sayings were quoted in the gossip attached to this or that monthly magazine; the correspondent of a country journal would hasten to say that it was not necessary to inform his readers that Lady Arthur Castletown was, in reality, Lady Adela Cunyngham, the wife of the well-known breeder of polled cattle, Sir Hugh Cunyngham of the Braes.  In the midst of all this Lionel went to his friend Maurice Mangan.

“Look here, Maurice,” said he, “that book can’t be as bad as you tried to make out.”

“It is the most insensate trash that was ever put between boards,” was the prompt reply.

“But how can that be?  Look at what the papers say!”

“The papers—­what papers?  That isn’t what the papers say—­that is what the small band of log-rollers say, calling industriously to one another, like frogs in a pond.  Didn’t I tell you what would happen if you got hold of Octavius Quirk, or any one of them?  How many dinners did your swell friends expend on Quirk?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  He is pretty often at the house.”

“He is pretty often at the house, is he?” Mangan repeated.