yed with us at Canton
Magna.--You were both on leave from India. I dare not think how many
years ago that is--before this child"--her candid eyes appealingly sought
those of Damaris--"before this child existed. And you are so wonderfully
unaltered."

Colour dyed her thin face and rather scraggy neck. Only the young should
blush. After forty such involuntary exhibitions of emotion are
unattractive, questionably even pathetic.

"Really time has stood still with you--it seems to me, Colonel Carteret."

"Time has done better than stand still," Damaris broke in, with a rather
surprising imperiousness. "It has beautifully run backwards--lately."

And our maiden, in her whispering gleaming dress, swept down from the
step, swept past the sadly taken aback Miss Felicia, and joined her
father. She put her hand within his arm.

"Come and warm yourself--come, dearest," she said, gently drawing him
onward into the long room, where from above the range of dark
bookshelves, goggle-eyed, pearl-grey Chinese goblins and monsters, and
oblique-eyed Chinese philosophers and saints looked mysteriously down
through the warm mellow light.

Damaris was conscious of a singular inward turmoil. For Miss Felicia's
speeches found small favour in her ears. She resented this open claiming
of Carteret as a member of the elder generation. Still more resented her
own relegation to the nullity of the prenatal state. Reminiscences, in
which she had neither lot nor part, left her cold. Or, to be accurate,
bred in her an intemperate heat, putting a match to jealousies which,
till this instant, she had no knowledge of. Touched by that match they
flared to the confusion of charity and reverence. Hence, impulsively,
unscrupulously, yet with ingenious unkindness, she struck--her tongue a
sword--to the wounding of poor Miss Felicia. And she felt no necessity
for apology. She liked to be unkind. She liked to strike. Aunt Felicia
should not have been so self-assertive, so tactless. She had brought
chastisement upon herself. It wasn't like her to behave thus. Her
enthusiasms abounded; but she possessed a delicate appreciation of
relative positions. She never poached. This came perilously near
poaching.--And everything had danced to so inspiring a tune, the movement
of it so delicious! Now the evening was spoilt. The first fine alacrity
of it could not be recaptured--which was all Aunt Felicia's fault.--No,
for her unkindness Damaris felt no regret.

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