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.
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