‘She never sees anything, my dear. She is eaten up with self-conceit, and if the whole world bowed down before her in mock homage she would take it for real, and accept it as her due. She fancies she is a giddy little butterfly, and that gentlemen admire her childish voice and ways, and are attracted by them. She would no more believe that they ridicule her afterwards than that they imagine her to be more than five-and-twenty! It is the _truth_, my dear girls. If I had to die the next moment, I should say the same thing. She actually had the audacity to tell me last week that Mr. Charteris had guessed her age at five-and-twenty. And she is five-and-fifty if she is a day!’ Tessie and I both laughed so immoderately at this, that we encouraged Mrs. Carolus to proceed with her complaints. ‘When she came and told me that she had seen Mr. Charteris at Rille, and persuaded him to come to St. Pucelle, I looked her in the face and said solemnly: “Sophia Markham, can you assure me that if that young man comes here you will not carry on with him in the disgraceful way you did last year at Brussels, because, if so,” I said, “tell me at once, and I will leave the place before shame drives me from it.” For if you could have seen, my dears, the things that went on between those two, you would have been as disgusted as I was.’ ‘Come, Mrs. Carolus!’ I deprecated, ‘you are taking away Mr. Charteris’s character now, remember, as well as that of your friend.’ ‘Oh! my dear, it wasn’t _his_ fault! Poor fellow, what could he do with a woman running after him morning, noon, and night, and dodging him wherever he went? His life was a martyrdom to him. But where Sophia takes a fancy she has no mercy!’ ‘This becomes serious!’ I replied, with mock gravity; ‘what shall we do to save him?’ ‘Nothing will save him,’ said Mrs. Carolus, seriously. ‘Who is to control a woman of that age? I cannot do it! And fancy her having the forwardness to attack him the very first morning. She would have come round last night if she had dared. But, bless my soul! isn’t that Sophy herself coming down the hill? So it is. The hunting-party must have started, then; she wouldn’t leave them one moment sooner, you may take my word for that! Oh! she has caught my eye, I _must_ nod to her. She has the most suspicious temper in the world, and would be sure to think, if she saw me here, that I had come up expressly to abuse her. Ah! now she must come in, of course, and I shall be obliged to walk through the town with her while she makes herself conspicuous at every step. Well, Sophy dear, have you enjoyed your walk?’ To hear these two women abuse each other when apart, and to see the marvellous transformation that took place in their speech, manner, and expression, as soon as they found themselves together again, was to witness one of the most curious phases of this world’s deceit. ‘Sophy dear’ bent down and kissed Mrs. Carolus’s cheek before she answered: