something amiss in the
dress, she had not had it on since the wedding.

"And she came in so late," said Cecil.

"That was my fault," he said. "We came through the village to leave
a message at the doctor's;" and he then insisted that the other pair
should set off, taking Frank and Charlie, and prevent dinner from
being kept waiting; at which the boys made faces, and declared that
it was a dodge of his to join Jenny's party in the schoolroom,
instead of the solemn dinner; but they were obliged to submit; and
it was not till twenty minutes later, that in glided something
white, with blue cashmere and swan's-down over it, moving, as usual,
with languid grace.

"Poor Julius!" smiled Rosamond with her dawdling dignity. "Every
single thing turned out a misfit! As it is, there's a monstrous
hole in my glove, which demands the benevolent fiction of my having
torn it by the way. There, one second for the effect!--Good-bye,
dear Mrs. Poynsett;--good-bye, Anne. Come, you monument of patience
and resignation!"

For one moment she had slipped back her little mantle, then drawn it
on, as, taking her husband's arm, she left the room; but that moment
had set Anne's cheeks aflame, and left Mrs. Poynsett in a startled
state of uncertainty, hoping her glance had been mistaken, wondering
what could have been _more_ amiss, and feeling incapable of entering
on the subject with that severe young judge, of narrow experience.

Never had her eldest son failed to come and bid her good night on
his way to his own room: it was the great break in her long
sleepless hours, and she used to call it a reversal of the relations
of those days when he used to watch for her kiss on her way to bed.
Nor did he fail her now, but came and stood over her with his
fragmentary tidings.

"An immense party--oh yes, there was he persuading them not to wait.
Mr. Bowater took Rosamond in to dinner, Cecil went with Sir Harry
Vivian. Yes, Lady Tyrrell was there, wonderfully handsome, but her
expression strikes me as altered; there is the sort of pathetic look
that, as Cecil said, is like the melancholy Medusa--I wonder if it
is genuine. She seems greatly disposed to cultivate Cecil--I wonder
what she does it for."

"Is Cecil attracted? I fancied she was."

"Yes, a good deal; and I fear the Wil'sbro' business will throw them
together. It is unlucky on Frank's account likewise. I see we
shall have it all over again there."

"I have great hope in hi