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age, and her feet protected by a pair of her favourite hygienic shoes. But these were merely the eccentricities of rank, and Green Street had a soul above appearances where the peerage was concerned. The country ladies listened submissively to Clare’s vivid dissertations on the respective merits of liver pills or bronchitis kettles. Nothing could have better proved their unselfish devotion, for if there is one principle a woman will cling to above all others in the general wreck of things, it is to her own particular patent medicines. As a rule, Mrs. Granby would have cheerfully gone to the stake sooner than accept her next-door neighbour’s cure for influenza; but when Mrs. Damon called one day with a bottle of uncanny-looking oily mixture, and fixed her bright unwinking gaze on the youngest Granby girl (a doubtful case of ordinary catarrh), even the Spartan mother had to relax her invariable rule, and accept the prescription. It isn’t every day that an amateur doctor with the courtesy prefix of "Honourable" could be consulted for nothing, and the Granbys felt that much must be forgiven to the sister-in-law of a future duke. But with regard to the younger visitor opinions were somewhat divided in the village. Most of the girls admired Alice, and were quite ready to adopt her at once. “She