rich in colour and texture.

'How pretty!' he said.

Jacinth glanced at it and the rest of her mother's attire, and at her
mother herself. She felt proud of her, of her undeniable beauty and air
of distinction--proud to present her to Lady Myrtle--and yet----

'I wonder if mamma is very much taken up with her clothes,' she thought.
'I wonder if she is extravagant. I expect I _shall_ have to take a good
deal upon me, as Lady Myrtle said. I suppose people in India really grow
very unpractical.'

Poor Lady Myrtle! Little had she intended her words to be thus
travestied.

But the reflection was not disagreeable to Jacinth, to whom a position
of responsibility and management was always congenial. She took her
mother's hand in hers, and smiling at Eugene replied: 'Yes indeed. What
lovely fur trimming, mamma! And what a pretty bonnet! You couldn't have
had that in India, surely?'

'No,' said Mrs Mildmay, smiling back at her children, 'I got one or two
things in London yesterday. I thought you would like me to look nice,
especially as I was going straight to Robin Redbreast. I don't believe
poor dear Aunt Alison would have seen any difference if I had come back
in the same clothes I went away in all those years ago.'

'No,' agreed Frances, 'I don't believe she would.'

But Jacinth looked a little grave; she could not quite 'make out' her
mother.

'Aunt Alison spends almost nothing on herself,' she said. 'She gives
away every farthing she possibly can.'

'I know she does, dear. She is the most self-denying person in those
ways that I have ever met,' said Mrs Mildmay heartily, though mentally
hoping to herself that Jacinth was not very matter-of-fact. But Eugene
was looking very solemn.

'What are you thinking of, my boy? his mother asked.

'Those clothes,' he said, 'those clothes what you went away with. They
must be wored out. I was only two when you went away, mamma?'

This made them all laugh, which was perhaps a good thing--a slight
relief to the over-excitement which in their different ways all had been
experiencing.

'Mamma,' said Frances earnestly, when the laughter had calmed down, 'I
_must_ tell you, I had no idea you were so pretty. I think you are the
very prettiest person I ever saw.'

'So do I,' Eugene chimed in.

Mrs Mildmay could not resist kissing again the two sweet flushed faces.

'My darlings,' she said, 'I hope you will always think so, in one way,
even when my hair is white and my face