She certainly was very beautiful! Joyce
had thought so before, as he had caught
transient glimpses of her flitting about the
house; but now that he had, unnoticed and
unseen, the opportunity of quietly studying
her, he was astonished at her beauty. Her
face was very pale, with an impertinent
little nose, and deep violet eyes, and a
small rosebud of a mouth; but perhaps her
greatest charm lay in her hair, which lay in
heavy thick chesnut clumps over her white
forehead. Across it she wore the daintiest
bit of precious lace, white lace, the merest
apology for a cap, two long lappels pinned
together by a diamond brooch, while the
huge full clump at the back, unmistakably
real, was studded with small diamond stars.
She was dressed in a blue satin gown, set
off with a profusion of white lace, and on
her arm she wore a large heavy gold
bracelet. Walter Joyce found himself
gazing at her in an odd indescribable way.
He had never seen anything like her,
never realised such a combination of beauty,
set off by the advantages of dress and
surroundings. Her voice too, so bright
and clear, and ringing, and her manner to
him—to him? Was it not to him that
she had really addressed these words of
advice, although they were surely said in
apparent reply to Captain Frampton's
comments? If that were so, it was indeed
kind of Lady Caroline, true, noble-hearted
kindness; he must write and tell Marian
of it.

He was thinking of this, and had in his
mind a picture, confused, indeed, but full
of small details which had a strange
interest for him, and a vivid sadness too, of
the contrast between the scene of which he
formed at this moment a part, and those
familiar to himself and to Marian. He was
thinking of the homely simple life of the
village, of the dear dead friend, so much a
better man, so much a truer gentleman
than any of these people, who were of so
much importance in a world where he had
been of so little; of the old house, the
familiar routine of life, not wearisome with
all its sameness, the sweetness of his first
love. He was thinking of the splendour,
the enervating, bewildering luxury of his
present surroundings, among which he sat
so strange, so solitary, save for the subtle
reassuring influence, the strange,
unaccountable support and something like
companionship in the tones of that fair and
gracious lady's voice, in the light of her
swift, flitting smile in which he thought he
read an admission that the company was
little more to her taste than to his, had
as little in common with her intellectual
calibre as with his. He could not have
told how she conveyed this impression to
him, if he had tried to explain his feelings
to any third person; he could not explain
it to himself, when he thought over the
events of the evening, alone in his room,
which was a dingy apartment when
compared with the rest of the house, but far
better than any which had ever called him
master; but there it was, strong and
strangely attractive, mingling with the
sights and sounds around him, and with
the dull dead pain at his heart which had
been caused by Marian's letter, and which
he had never quite succeeded in conquering.
There were unshed, but not unseen
tears in his eyes, and a slight tremulous
motion in his lips, which one pair of eyes
at the table, quick, with all their languor,
keen, with all their disdainful slowness,
did not fail to see. The owner of those beautiful
eyes did not quite understand, could
not "fathom" the meaning of the sudden
glitter in his; "idle tears," indeed, on such
an occasion, and in such company; but,
with the fine unfailing instinct of a coquette,
she discerned, more clearly than Walter
Joyce himself had felt it, that she counted
for something in the origin and meaning of
those unshed tears, and of that nervous
twitching.

Lady Caroline had just removed her eyes
with well feigned carelessness from Walter's
face, after a covert glance, apparently
casual, but in reality searching, in order to
effect which she had leaned forward, and
plucked some geranium leaves from a
bouquet near her on the table; and Walter was
removing himself still farther from the scene
around, into the land of reverie, when a name
spoken by Mr. Gould, and making an odd
accidental harmony with his thoughts, fixed
his wandering attention.

"What sort of weather had you in
Hampshire?" asked Lord Hetherington, in
one of those irksome pauses usually
selected by some individual who is at once
commonplace and good-natured to distinguish
himself by uttering an inane sentiment,
or asking an awkward question.

"Awful, I should fancy," said Lady
Hetherington, in the most languid of her
languid tones. " Awful, if it has been like
the weather here. Were you really obliged
to travel, Mr. Gould? I can't fancy any
one going anywhere in such weather. '

"As it happened," said Mr. Gould, with
a rather impatient glance towards her