I won't flatter you by telling you whether a red or a black one." "Who are the party going to be, Mallett ?" his friend Colonel Severn said, as they stood together on the deck of the Osprey early in August.

"You guaranteed that it would be a pleasant one when you persuaded me to leave London, for the first time since I retired, before shooting began." "Well, to begin with, there is Lady Greendale, an eminently pleasant woman.

She comes as general chaperon, and I shall consider her under your especial care.

You will not find it hard work, for she is an eminently sympathetic woman, ready to chat if you are disposed to talk, to interest herself in other ways if you are not.
She has plenty of common sense, is tolerant of tobacco, and a thorough woman of the world, though her headquarters have for years been in the country.

With her is her daughter." "Well, what about her?
I have heard of her as having made quite a sensation this season, and between ourselves I had some idea that this party was specially planned on her account." "To some extent perhaps it was," Frank Mallett laughed.