Myrtle was standing in the porch. It seemed to her only fitting
that she should come thus far to welcome such a guest, and something in
her almost tremulously affectionate greeting touched Mrs Mildmay keenly.

'It is _so_ good of you--meeting me like this,' the younger woman
whispered, as she threw her arms round her old friend. 'And, oh, how
delightful it is to have you and this to come to!'

'My dear, my dear,' said Lady Myrtle, 'don't thank me. Only let me see
that you and your children are happy and at home with me; that is _all_
I care about.'

And again she kissed the Eugenia she had not seen since her childhood.

Mrs Mildmay was very like Frances; correctly speaking, one should put it
the other way, but as a new actor on the scene of this little story it
is natural thus to express it. Her face had something indescribably
childlike about it; her blue eyes were almost wistful, though the whole
expression was bright and happy and very changeful. Yet there was plenty
of 'character'--no dearth of good firm lines, with yet an entire absence
of anything denoting hardness or obstinacy; the whole giving from the
first candid glance an impression of extreme ingenuousness and
single-mindedness.

[Illustration: 'It is so good of you, meeting me like this,' the younger
woman whispered, as she threw her arms round her old friend.]

'You are not like your mother,' said Lady Myrtle, when the little group
had made its way into the drawing-room where tea was already waiting. 'I
knew you were not. Yet something in your voice recalls her. I suppose
you can _scarcely_ remember her,' she went on, 'not well enough to see
the really marvellous resemblance between her and my child here--my
child as well as yours?' and she smiled at Jacinth who was standing by,
and laid her hand affectionately on the girl's arm.

'Oh yes,' Mrs Mildmay replied, 'I remember enough for that. And then I
have one or two excellent portraits, besides the large one at
Stannesley; at least my father always told me they were excellent. And
even when Jassie was quite tiny, he saw the likeness and was delighted
at it. But I--I am quite "Denison" I know, and so are Francie and
Eugene. The odd thing is that Jassie is also in some ways more like the
Mildmays than the two others.'

'I have never seen your husband, you know,' said Lady Myrtle. 'I can't
say that the likeness to good Miss Alison Mildmay has ever struck me.'

The quaint way in which the old lady sai