hy you are grown as fine a pair as I would
wish to see on a summer's day. Last time I saw you I could hardly tell
you apart, when you both wore straw hats and white trousers. No mistake
now though. Well, I am right glad to have you here."

"Won't you take off some of your wraps, Mary?" proceeded Mrs. Langford,
and her daughter-in-law, with a soft "Thank you," passively obeyed. "And
you too, my dear," she added to Henrietta.

"Off with that bonnet, Miss Henrietta," proceeded grandpapa. "Let me
see whether you are as like your brother as ever. He has your own face,
Mary."

"Do not you think his forehead like--" and she looked to the end of
the room where hung the portraits of two young children, the brothers
Geoffrey and Frederick. Henrietta had often longed to see it, but now
she could attend to nothing but her mamma.

"Like poor dear Frederick?" said grandmamma. "Well, I can't judge by
firelight, you know, my dear, but I should say they were both your very
image."

"You can't be the image of any one I should like better," said Mr.
Langford, turning to them cheerfully, and taking Henrietta's hand. "I
wish nothing better than to find you the image of your mamma inside and
out."

"Ah, there's Geoffrey!" cried Mrs. Langford, springing up and almost
running to meet him.

"Well, Geoffrey, how d'ye do?" added his father with an indescribable
tone and look of heartfelt delight. "Left all your cares behind you?"

"Left my wife behind me," said Uncle Geoffrey, making a rueful face.

"Ay, it is a sad business that poor Beatrice cannot come," said both the
old people, "but how is poor Lady Susan?"

"As usual, only too nervous to be left with none of the family at hand.
Well, Mary, you look tired."

Overcome, Uncle Geoffrey would have said, but he thought the other
accusation would answer the same purpose and attract less attention,
and it succeeded, for Mrs. Langford proposed to take her up stairs.
Henrietta thought that Beatrice would have offered to save her the
trouble, but this would not have been at all according to the habits of
grandmamma or granddaughter, and Mrs. Langford briskly led the way to
a large cheerful-looking room, talking all the time and saying she
supposed Henrietta would like to be with her mamma. She nodded to their
maid, who was waiting there, and gave her a kindly greeting, stirred the
already bright fire into a blaze, and returning to her daughter-in-law
who was standing like one in a dream,