ve changed! Why, I declare you
are quite a woman! When did you come? How pretty you are!" Mrs. Milray
took Clementina in her arms and kissed her in proof of her admiration
before the whole breakfast room. She was very nice to Mrs. Lander, too,
who, when Clementina introduced them, made haste to say that Clementina
was there on a visit with her. Mrs. Milray answered that she envied her
such a visitor as Miss Claxon, and protested that she should steal her
away for a visit to herself, if Mr. Milray was not so much in love with
her that it made her jealous. "Mr. Milray has to have his breakfast in
his room," she explained to Clementina. "He's not been so well, since he
lost his mother. Yes," she said, with decorous solemnity, "I'm still in
mourning for her," and Clementina saw that she was in a tempered black.
"She died last year, and now I'm taking Mr. Milray abroad to see if it
won't cheer him up a little. Are you going South for the winter?" she
inquired, politely, of Mrs. Lander. "I wish I was going," she said, when
Mrs. Lander guessed they should go, later on. "Well, you must come in
and see me all you can, Clementina; and I shall have the pleasure of
calling upon you," she added to Mrs. Lander with state that was lost in
the soubrette-like volatility of her flight from them the next moment.
"Goodness, I forgot all about Mr. Milray's breakfast!" She ran back to
the table she had left on the other side of the room.

"Who is that, Clementina?" asked Mrs. Lander, on their way to their
rooms. Clementina explained as well as she could, and Mrs. Lander summed
up her feeling in the verdict, "Well, she's a lady, if ever I saw a
lady; and you don't see many of 'em, nowadays."

The girl remembered how Mrs. Milray had once before seemed very fond of
her, and had afterwards forgotten the pretty promises and professions
she had made her. But she went with Mrs. Lander to see her, and she saw
Mr. Milray, too, for a little while. He seemed glad of their meeting,
but still depressed by the bereavement which Mrs. Milray supported
almost with gayety. When he left them she explained that he was a good
deal away from her, with his family, as she approved of his being,
though she had apparently no wish to join him in all the steps of the
reconciliation which the mother's death had brought about among them.
Sometimes his sisters came to the hotel to see her, but she amused
herself perfectly without them, and she gave much more of her leisur