l Venetian vase going to
that big bony Scotswoman, Mr. M'Vie's mother."

"Indeed! That is a pity. If I had known it would be raffled for, I
would have sent a private commission, though I don't know if Julius
would have let me. He says it is gambling. What became of the Spa
work-box, with the passion-flower wreath?"

"I don't know. I was so disgusted, that I would not look any more.
I never saw such an obnoxious girl as that Miss Moy."

"_That_ she is," said Rosamond. "I should think she was acting the
fast girl as found in sensation novels."

"Exactly," said Cecil, proceeding to narrate the proposed election;
and in her need of sympathy she even told its sequel, adding,
"Rosamond, do you know what she meant?"

"Is it fair to tell you?" said Rosamond, asking a question she knew
to be vain.

"I must know whether I have been deceived."

"Never by Raymond!" cried Rosamond.

"Never, never, never!" cried Cecil, with most unusual excitement.
"He told me all that concerned himself at the very first. I wish he
had told me who it was. How much it would have saved! Rosamond,
you know, I am sure."

"Yes, I made Julius tell me; but indeed, Cecil, you need not mind.
Never has a feeling more entirely died out."

"Do you think I do not know that?" said Cecil. "Do you think my
husband could have been my husband if he had not felt _that_?"

"Dear Cecil, I am so glad," cried impulsive Rosamond; her gladness,
in truth, chiefly excited by the anger that looked like love for
Raymond. "I mean, I am glad you see it so, and don't doubt him."

"I hope we are both above that," said Cecil. "No, it is Camilla
that I want to know about. I _must_ know whether she told me
truth."

"She told! what did she tell you?"

"That _he_--Raymond--had loved some one," said Cecil in a stifled
voice; "that I little knew what his love could be. I thought it had
been for her sister in India. She told me that it was nobody in the
country. But then we were in town."

"Just like her!" cried Rosamond, and wondered not to be
contradicted.

"Tell me how it really was!" only asked Cecil.

"As far as I know, the attachment grew up with Raymond, but it was
when the brother was alive, and Sir Harry at his worst; and Mrs.
Poynsett did not like it, though she gave in at last, and tried to
make the best of it; but then she--Camilla--as you call her--met the
old monster, Lord Tyrrell, made up a quarrel, because Mrs. Poynsett
would not abdic