It was understood that the ladies were to be assembled in the bazaar at half-past two, and that the doors were to be thrown open to the public at three o’clock. Soon after half-past two Mrs Mackenzie’s carriage was at the door, and the other Mackenzies having come up at the same time, the Mackenzie phalanx entered the building together. There were many others with them, but as they walked up they found the Countess of Ware standing alone in the centre of the building, with her four daughters behind her. She had on her head a wonderful tiara, which gave to her appearance a ferocity almost greater than was natural to her. She was a woman with square jaws, and a big face, and stout shoulders: but she was not, of her own unassisted height, very tall. But of that tiara and its altitude she was proud, and as she stood in the midst of the stalls, brandishing her umbrella-sized parasol in her anger, the ladies, as they entered, might well be cowed by her presence.

“When ladies say half-past two,” said she, “they ought to come at half-past two. Where is the Duchess of St Bungay? I shall not wait for her.”

But there was a lady there who had come in behind the Mackenzies, whom nothing ever cowed. This was the Lady Glencora Palliser, the great heiress who had married the heir of a great duke, pretty, saucy, and occasionally intemperate, in whose eyes Lady Ware with her ferocious tiara was simply an old woman in a ridiculous head-gear. The countess had apparently addressed herself to Mrs Mackenzie, who had been the foremost to enter the building, and our Margaret had already begun to tremble. But Lady Glencora stepped forward, and took the brunt of the battle upon herself.

“Nobody ever yet was so punctual as my Lady Ware,” said Lady Glencora.

“It is very annoying to be kept waiting on such occasions,” said the countess.

“But my dear Lady Ware, who keeps you waiting? There is your stall, and why on earth should you stand here and call us all over as we come in, like naughty schoolboys?”

“The duchess said expressly that she would be here at half-past two.”

“Who ever expects the dear duchess to keep her word?” said Lady Glencora.

“Or whoever cared whether she does or does not?” said Mrs Chaucer Munro, who, with her peculiar bevy, had now made her way up among the front rank.

Then to have seen the tiara of Lady Ware, as it wagged and nodded while she looked at Mrs Munro, and to have witnessed the high moral tone of the ferocity with which she stalked away to her own stall with her daughters behind her,—a tragi-comedy which it was given to no male eyes to behold,—would have been worth the whole after-performance of the bazaar. No male eyes beheld that scene, as Mr Manfred Smith, the manager, had gone out to look for his duchess, and missing her carriage in the crowd, did not return till the bazaar had been opened. That Mrs Chaucer Munro did not sink, collapsed, among her bevy, must have been owing altogether to that callousness which a long habit of endurance produces. Probably she did feel something as at the moment there came no titter from any other bevy corresponding to the titter which was raised by her own. She and her bevy retired to their allotted place, conscious that their time for glory could not come till the male world should appear upon the scene. But Lady Ware’s tiara still wagged and nodded behind her counter, and Margaret, looking at her, thought that she must have come there as the grand duenna of the occasion.