Chapter 25

Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the
morning to make some purchases and as she had sat in her large
landau she had greatly missed Miss Brent who had always gone with
her when she had made necessary visits to the shops. She was not
fond of shopping and Miss Brent had privately found pleasure in
it which had made her a cheerful companion. To the quiet elderly
woman whose life previous to her service with this great lady had
been spent in struggles with poverty, the mere incident of entering
shops and finding eager salesmen springing forward to meet her
with bows and amiable offers of ministration, was to the end of
her days an almost thrilling thing. The Duchess bought splendidly
though quietly. Knowing always what she wanted, she merely required
that it be produced, and after silently examining it gave orders
that it should be sent to her. There was a dignity in her decision
which was impressive. She never gave trouble or hesitated. The
staffs of employees in the large shops knew and reveled in her
while they figuratively bent the knee. Miss Brent had been a happy
satisfied woman while she had lived. She had died peacefully after
a brief and, as it seemed at first, unalarming illness at one of
her employer's country houses to which she had been amiably sent
down for a holiday. Every kindness and attention had been bestowed
upon her and only a few moments before she fell into her last
sleep she had been talking pleasantly of her mistress.

"She is a very great lady, Miss Hallam," she had said to her nurse.
"She's the last of her kind I often think. Very great ladies seem
to have gone out--if you know what I mean. They've gone out."

The Duchess had in fact said of Brent as she stood a few days
later beside her coffin and looked down at her contentedly serene
face, something not unlike what Brent had said of herself.

"You were a good friend, Brent, my dear," she murmured. "I shall
always miss you. I am afraid there are no more like you left."

She was thinking of her all the morning as she drove slowly down
to Bond Street and Piccadilly. As she got out of her carriage to
go into a shop she was attracted by some photographs of beauties in
a window and paused to glance at them. Many of them were beauties
whom she knew, but among them were some of society's latest
discoveries. The particular photographs which caught her eye were
two which had evidently been purposely placed side by side for
an interesting reason. The reason was that the two women, while
obviously belonging to periods of some twenty years apart as the
fashion of their dress proved, were in face and form so singularly
alike that they bewilderingly suggested that