f the year."

"But she intended to stay till July, Elinor."

"Did she? I think you are mistaken, John. She intended to watch over
me--dear mamma, she thinks too much of me--but when she saw that I was
quite well----"

"You don't look to me so extraordinarily well."

"Don't I? I must be a fraud then. Nobody could be stronger. I'm going to
a multitude of places to-night. Wherever my Hebrew leader goes I go,"
said Elinor, with a laugh. "I have given myself up for to-night, and she
is never satisfied with less than a dozen."

"Ten minutes to each."

"Oh, half an hour at least: and with having our carriage found for us at
every place, and the risk of getting into a _queue_, and all the delays
of coming and going, it cannot be much less than three-quarters of an
hour. This is the third. I think three more will weary even the Jew."

"You are with Lady Mariamne then, Elinor?"

"Yes--oh, you need not make that face. She is as good as the rest, and
pretends to nothing, at least. I have no carriage, you know, and Phil
took fright at my dear old fly. He thought a hired brougham was not good
when I was alone."

"That was quite true. Nevertheless, I should like above all things to
keep you here a little longer to look at some of the pictures, and take
you home in a hansom after."

She laughed. "Oh, so should I--fancy, I have not seen the pictures, not
at all. We came in a mob to the private view; and then one day I was
coming with mamma, but was stopped by something, and now---- Always
people, people--nothing else. 'Did you see So-and-so? There's some one
bowing to you, Nell. Be sure you speak a word to the Thises or the
Thats'--while I don't care for one of them. But I fear the hansom would
not do, John."

"It would have done very well in the old days. Your mother would not
have been displeased."

"The old days are gone and will never return," she said, half sad, half
smiling, shaking her head. "So far as I can see, nothing ever returns.
You have your day, and if you do not make the best of that----"

She stopped, shaking her head again with a laugh, and there were various
ways in which that speech might be interpreted. John for one knew a
sense of it which he believed had never entered Elinor's head. He too
might have had his day and let it slip. "So you are making the most of
yours," he said. "I hear that you are very gay."

Elinor coloured high under his look. "I don't know who can have told you
that. We have ha