t?"

"Certainly it does," answered Constance, noting a pathetic self-subdual
in the old lady's look and tone. "For a girl, it means a good deal."

"You think so?" The bony hands were restless and tremulous; the dark
eyes glistened. "It isn't quite ordinary, is it? But then, of course,
it tells nothing about her character. She is coming to stay for a day
or two coming on Saturday. If I don't like her, no harm's done. Back
she goes to her people, that's all--her mother's family--I know nothing
about them, and care less. At all events, she looks endurable--don't
you think?"

"Much more than that," said Constance. "A very nice girl, I should
imagine."

"Ha! You mean that?--Of course you do, or you wouldn't say it. But
then, if she's only a 'nice girl'--pooh! She ought to be more than
that. What's the use of a photograph? Every photo ever taken of me made
me look a simpering idiot."

This was by no means true, but Lady Ogram had always been a bad sitter
to the camera, and had destroyed most of its results. The oil painting
in the dining-room she regarded with a moderate complacency. Many a
time during the latter years of withering and enfeeblement her memory
had turned to that shining head in marble, which was hidden away amid
half a century's dust under the roof at Rivenoak. There, and there
only, survived the glory of her youth, when not the face alone, but all
her faultless body made the artist's rapture.

"Well," she said, abruptly, "you'll see the girl. Her name is May
Tomalin. You're not obliged to like her. You're not obliged to tell me
what you think of her. Most likely I shan't ask you.--By the bye, I had
a letter from Dyce Lashmar this morning."

"Indeed?" said the other, with a careless smile.

"I like his way of writing. It's straight-forward and sharp-cut, like
his talk. A man who means what he says, and knows how to say it; that's
a great deal nowadays."

Constance assented with all good-humour to Lady Ogram's praise.

"You must answer him for me," the old lady continued. "No need, of
course, to show me what you write; just put it into a letter of your
own."

"I hardly think I shall be writing to Mr. Lashmar," said Miss Bride,
very quietly.

"Do you mean that?"

Their eyes met' and Constance bore the other's gaze without flinching.

"We are not such great friends, Lady Ogram. You will remember I told
you that I knew him but slightly."

"All right. It has nothing to do with me, whether you're