The girl might have been asked to please Miss Bodkin. I daresay she had heard of her from Mrs. Errington. Mrs. Errington is always raving about her."

Rose smiled with tightly-closed lips, and nodded. "To be sure! Poor dear Mrs. Errington—I mean no disrespect to your mother-in-law, Castalia, who is really a superior woman, only in some things she is as blind as a bat."

Castalia's sallow face was paler than ever. Her nostrils were dilated as if she had been running fast. "You never told me a word of this before," she said.

"My dear creature," said Rose, looking full at Castalia for the first time, "why, what was there to tell? The subject was led to by chance now, and I had not the least idea that you did not know all Algy's old love-stories. Everybody here—except, I suppose, poor dear Mrs. Errington—knew of the boy-and-girl nonsense between him and that little thing. But of course it never was serious. That was out of the question."

"I don't believe it!" said Castalia, suddenly.

"Well, I daresay the thing was exaggerated, as so often happens. For my part, I never could see what there was in the girl to make so many people admire her. A certain freshness, perhaps; and some men do think a great deal of that pink-and-white sort of insipidity."

"At all events, Ancram does not care about her now," said Castalia, speaking in broken sentences, and twisting her watch-chain nervously backwards and forwards in her fingers.

"Oh, of course not! I daresay he never did care about her in earnest. But that sort of philandering is a little dangerous, isn't it?"

"He does not like me to ask her to the house even."

"Doesn't he?"

"No; he has said so more or less plainly several times. He said so this very evening."

"Did he, indeed? Well, I really am glad to hear it. I scarcely gave Algy—Mr. Errington—credit for so much—prudence!"

"Mrs. Errington and Miss Maxfield," announced Lydia at the door of the drawing-room.

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Errington advanced towards her daughter-in-law with her habitual serene stateliness, and Rhoda followed her, modestly, looking very pretty in a new dress, the delicate hue of which set off her fair complexion to great advantage. Castalia received them much as usual; that is to say, without displaying any emotion whatever. But when Mrs. Errington took her daughter-in-law's hand, she exclaimed, "Good gracious, Castalia, how cold you are! A perfect frog! And yet this little room of yours is very warm; oppressively warm to one coming from without."

"We find the temperature so comfortable here!" said Violet. "Dear Castalia always has her rooms deliciously warm, we think."

"Perhaps, Violet, you are chilly by nature. Some constitutions are so. For myself, I have a wonderful circulation. But it is hereditary. All my branch of the Ancrams were renowned for it. I don't know, my dear Castalia, whether my cousin, Lady Seely, has the same peculiarity?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"With us it was a well-known thing among the Faculty for miles around Ancram Park. Our extremities were never cold, nor had we ever red noses. I believe a red nose was absolutely unknown in our family. No doubt that was part of the same thing; perfect circulation of the blood."

With that Mrs. Errington sat down tolerably near the fire and made herself comfortable. "Where is my dear boy?" she asked after a little while. "Not at that dreadful office I hope and trust!"

"He is at home," replied Castalia, slowly. "I asked him to come into the drawing-room, and he said he would by-and-by."

"Oh, I daresay he will come now, dear," said Rose McDougall, without raising her eyes from her sewing.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Errington to her daughter-in-law, "and if he does come 'now' you must not be jealous."

The two sisters glanced at the good lady in quick surprise, and then at Rhoda. Rhoda was looking, for the hundredth time, at a book of prints. It was her usual evening's occupation at Ivy Lodge. Mrs. Errington proceeded, placid, smiling, and condescending as ever: "You must not be jealous, Castalia, if he does come directly he learns that his mother is here. To be sure a wife ranks first. I have always acknowledged that; and, indeed, insisted on it. I am sure it was my own case with poor dear Dr. Errington, who would never have dreamed of putting any human being into competition with me. Still, allowances must be made for the very peculiar and devoted attachment Algy has always felt for me. He is, and ever was, an Ancram to the core. And this kind of—one may say romantic—affection for their mothers has always distinguished the scions of our house from time immemorial. Good evening, my dear Algy. I find our dear Castalia looking a little worn and ill, and I tell her she keeps her rooms too hot. What do you say?"

Algernon had sauntered into the room during his mother's harangue, delivered in the full mellow voice that belonged to her, and now bent to kiss the worthy lady's cheek as he greeted her. It was a cool, firm, rosy cheek. Indeed, Mrs. Errington's freshness and bloom were in singular opposition to Castalia's sallow haggardness, and made the elder lady look doubly buxom and buoyant by the force of contrast.

"You're flourishing, at all events, chère madame," said Algernon, looking at his mother with unfeigned satisfaction. It was a relief to him to see a contented, smiling, comfortable countenance. Nevertheless, although agreeable to look upon, Mrs. Errington was apt to become a little wearisome in point of conversation, and her dutiful son cast his eyes round the circle in search of a pleasant seat wherein to bestow himself. But his glance met no response. Rose McDougall had drawn near his wife, and after very stiffly returning his bow, had ceased to take any notice of him, markedly avoiding his eye, and keeping silence after he had spoken. Violet was divided between listening to the elder Mrs. Errington and watching her sister. Castalia was more lazy, more silent, more indifferent than usual. Algernon was as unaccustomed as a spoiled child to be taken no notice of. He to stand among those women as a person of secondary importance, not greeted, not flattered, not smiled upon!

He looked across the group round the fire to Rhoda, who happened to raise her eyes at that moment, and being taken by surprise at meeting his, dropped them hastily, with a vivid blush. Rhoda's blushes were as unmeaning as the smiles of an infant. The most trivial cause made her change colour, as Algernon very well knew. But at least the soft bright pink hue on pretty Rhoda's cheek showed some emotion, however slight or transient, at the sight of him. And, moved partly by a boyish, pettish resentment against the others, partly by the desire to hear a pleasant voice and pleasant words, and look upon a pretty woman's face with its delicate contour and fine subtle changes of tint, he walked across the room and seated himself beside Rhoda Maxfield.

Castalia pushed her chair back out of the lamplight. "You can't see to do your purse in that dark corner, Castalia," exclaimed Mrs. Errington.

"I don't want to do my purse. I'm sick of it."

"Naughty, fickle girl!" This was said playfully. Then in a loud whisper, addressed to the McDougalls as well as to her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Errington exclaimed, "Doesn't Rhoda look charming to-night? That pale lilac is the very colour for her. Trying to skins that have the least tinge of yellow in them, but she is so wonderfully fair! Dear me, it reminds one of old times to see those two side by side. As children they were always together."

No one responded. Violet McDougall fidgeted nervously on her chair and cast an appealing look at her sister. She would have tried to lead Mrs. Errington to talk of something else had she dared, but in Rose's presence Violet never ventured to take the initiative; and, besides, she was afraid of doing more harm than good, Mrs. Errington not being one of