was about to slip the slight collar he had worn in her service—­one buckled on by him willingly because—­ though she had not known it—­he was a guest in the house.  Heretofore she said to herself Jack had been her willing slave, a feather in her cap—­going everywhere with her; half the girls were convinced he was in love with her—­a theory which she had encouraged.  What would they say now?  This prospect so disturbed the young woman that she again touched the button, and again Hortense glided in.

“Hortense, tell Parkins to let me know the moment Mr. John comes in—­and get me my blue tea-gown; I sha’n’t go out to-day.”  This done she sank back on her pillows.

She was a slight little body, this Corinne—­blue-eyed, fair-haired, with a saucy face and upturned nose.  Jack thought when he first saw her that she looked like a wren with its tiny bill in the air—­and Jack was not far out of the way.  And yet she was a very methodical, level-headed little wren, with several positive convictions which dominated her life—­one of them being that everybody about her ought to do, not as they, but as she, pleased.  She had begun, and with pronounced success, on her mother as far back as she could remember, and had then tried her hand on her stepfather until it became evident that as her mother controlled that gentleman it was a waste of time to experiment further.  All of which was a saving of stones without the loss of any birds.

Where she failed—­and she certainly had failed, was with Jack, who though punctiliously polite was elusive and—­never quite subdued.  Yet the discovery made, she neither pouted nor lost her temper, but merely bided her time.  Sooner or later, she knew, of course, this boy, who had seen nothing of city life and who was evidently dazed with all the magificence of the stately home overlooking the Park, would find his happiest resting-place beneath the soft plumage of her little wing.  And if by any chance he should fall in love with her—­and what more natural; did not everybody fall in love with her?—­would it not be wiser to let him think she returned it, especially if she saw any disposition on the young man’s part to thwart her undisputed sway of the household?

For months she had played her little game, yet to her amazement none of the things she had anticipated had happened.  Jack had treated her as he would any other young woman of his acquaintance —­always with courtesy—­always doing everything to oblige her, but never yielding to her sway.  He would laugh sometimes at her pretensions, just as he would have laughed at similar self-assertiveness on the part of any one else with whom he must necessarily be thrown, but never by thought, word or deed had he ever given my Lady Wren the faintest suspicion that he considered her more beautiful, better dressed, or more entertaining, either in song, chirp, flight or plumage, than the flock of other birds about her.  Indeed, the Scribe knows it to be a fact that if Jack’s innate politeness had not forbidden, he would many times have told her truths, some of them mighty unpleasant ones, to which her ears had been strangers since her school-girl days.