s gone. But she
still cared for Lady Davenant's descriptions and judgments, because they
were the thing in her life which (when she met the old woman from time
to time) most represented talk--the rare sort of talk that was not mere
chaff. That was what she had dreamed of before she came to England, but
in Selina's set the dream had not come true. In Selina's set people only
harried each other from morning till night with extravagant
accusations--it was all a kind of horse-play of false charges. When Lady
Davenant was accusatory it was within the limits of perfect
verisimilitude.

Laura waited for Mrs. Berrington to come in but she failed to appear, so
that the girl gathered her waterproof together with an intention of
departure. But she was secretly reluctant, because she had walked over
to Plash with a vague hope that some soothing hand would be laid upon
her pain. If there was no comfort at the dower-house she knew not where
to look for it, for there was certainly none at home--not even with Miss
Steet and the children. It was not Lady Davenant's leading
characteristic that she was comforting, and Laura had not aspired to be
coaxed or coddled into forgetfulness: she wanted rather to be taught a
certain fortitude--how to live and hold up one's head even while knowing
that things were very bad. A brazen indifference--it was not exactly
that that she wished to acquire; but were there not some sorts of
indifference that were philosophic and noble? Could Lady Davenant not
teach them, if she should take the trouble? The girl remembered to have
heard that there had been years before some disagreeable occurrences in
_her_ family; it was not a race in which the ladies inveterately turned
out well. Yet who to-day had the stamp of honour and credit--of a past
which was either no one's business or was part and parcel of a fair
public record--and carried it so much as a matter of course? She herself
had been a good woman and that was the only thing that told in the long
run. It was Laura's own idea to be a good woman and that this would make
it an advantage for Lady Davenant to show her how not to feel too much.
As regards feeling enough, that was a branch in which she had no need to
take lessons.

The old woman liked cutting new books, a task she never remitted to her
maid, and while her young visitor sat there she went through the greater
part of a volume with the paper-knife. She didn't proceed very
fast--there was a kind of