e old lady opened her eyes wide, and came back suddenly from dreamland.
Vera Nevill stood before her.

"Vera, is it _you_? Good gracious! how did you get in? I never even heard
the door open."

"I came in by the front-door quite correctly," said Vera, smiling and
reaching out her hand for a chair, "and was duly announced by the
footman; but I had no idea you were asleep."

"Only dozing. Sit down, my dear, sit down; I am glad to see you." And,
somehow, all the awkwardness of the meeting between the two vanished. It
was as though they had parted only yesterday on the most friendly terms.
In Vera's absence, Lady Kynaston had thought hard things of her, and had
spoken condemning words concerning her; but in her presence all this
seemed to be altered.

There was something so unspeakably refreshing and soothing about Vera;
there was a certain quiet dignity in her movements, a calm serenity in
her manner, which made it difficult to associate blame and displeasure
with her. Faults she might have, but they could never be mean or ignoble
ones; there was nothing base or contemptible about her. The pure, proud
profile, the broad grave brow, the eyes that, if a trifle cold, were as
true withal as the soul that looked out, sometimes earnestly, sometimes
wistfully, from their shadowy depths; everything about her bade one judge
her, not so much by her actions, which were sometimes incomprehensible,
but by a certain standard that she herself created in the minds of
all who knew her.

Lady Kynaston had called her a jilt and a heartless coquette; she had
made no secret of saying, right and left, how badly she had behaved: what
shameful and discreditable deductions might be drawn from her conduct
towards Sir John. Yet, the very instant she set eyes upon her, she felt
sorry for the hard things she had said of her, and ashamed of herself
that she should have spoken them.

Vera drew forward a chair, and sat down near her. The dress she wore was
white, of some clear and delicate material, softened with creamy lace; it
had been one of kind-hearted Cissy Hazeldine's many presents to her.
Looking at her, Lady Kynaston thought what a lovely vision of youth and
beauty she made in the sombre quiet of the little room.

"They tell me half the men in London have gone mad over you," were her
first words following the train of her own thoughts, and she liked her
visitor none the less, that world-loving little old woman, because she
could not but