his was the nearest point they had come to that outburst
of two full hearts which both of them would have called breaking down.
Mrs. Dennistoun saw it and was frightened. She thought it would be
betraying to Elinor what she wished her never to know, the unspeakable
desolation to which she was looking forward when her child was taken
from her. Elinor's exclamation, too, was a protest against the imminent
breaking down. They both came back with a hurry, with a panting breath,
to safer ground.

"Yes, that's what I regret," she said. "Mr. Bolsover and Harry Compton
will laugh a little at the Rectory. They will not be so--nice as young
men of their own kind."

"The Rectory people are just as well born as any of us, Elinor."

"Oh, precisely, mamma: I know that; but we too---- It is what they call
a different _monde_. I don't think it is half so nice a _monde_," said
the girl, feeling that she had gone further than she intended to do;
"but you know, mamma----"

"I know, Elinor: but I scarcely expected from you----"

"Oh," cried Elinor again, in exasperation, "if you think that I share
that feeling! I think it odious, I think their _monde_ is vulgar, nasty,
miserable! I think----"

"Don't go too far the other way, Elinor. Your husband will be of it, and
you must learn to like it. You think, perhaps, all that is new to me?"

"No," said Elinor, her bright eyes, all the brighter for tears, falling
before her mother's look. "I know, of course, that you have seen--all
kinds----"

But she faltered a little, for she did not believe that her mother was
acquainted with Phil's circle and their wonderful ways.

"They will be civil enough," she went on, hurriedly, "and as everybody
chaffs so much nowadays they will, perhaps, never be found out. But I
don't like it for my friends."

"They will chaff me also, no doubt," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Oh, _you_, mamma! they are not such fools as that," cried poor Elinor;
but in her own mind she did not feel confident that there was any such
limitation to their folly. Mrs. Dennistoun laughed a little to herself,
which was, perhaps, more alarming than that other moment when she was
almost ready to cry.

"You had better wear Lord St. Serf's ring," she said, after a moment,
with a tone of faint derision which Elinor knew.

"You might as well tell me," cried the bride, "to wear Lady Mariamne's
revolving dishes. No, I will wear nothing, nothing but your star."

"You have got nothing half