should not be
frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk
Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But
Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed
it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the
pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May
with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the
dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy.
Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and
money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do,
what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so
easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the
quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the
disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.

This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it
was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great
many ideas into her mind.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DORSETS.

Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of
the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though
they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which
had brought them "home" at this inhospitable time of the year; and to
get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the
anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture
of emotions, anxious to be "very fond" of them, yet feeling difficulties
in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with
big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour.
They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange
faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not
understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little
heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily
conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The
obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win
their confidence, w