But the young lady made no explanation. She put her hands up to her throat and loosed her cloak with a little sigh of relief. She undid the veil from her hat. “Thank heaven, I have got here at last, free of those people!” she said, putting herself _sans façon_ into Mr Waring’s chair, and laying her hat upon the little table. Then she looked up at the astonished girl, who stood looking on. “Are you Frances?” she said; but the question was put in an almost indifferent tone. “Yes; I am Frances. But I don’t know----” Frances was civil to the bottom of her soul, polite, incapable of hurting any one’s feelings. She could not say anything disagreeable; she could not demand brutally, Who are you? and what do you want here? “I thought so,” said the stranger; “and, oddly enough, I saw you this afternoon, and wondered if it could be you. You are a little like mamma.--I am Constance, of course,” she added, looking up with a half-smile. “We ought to kiss each other, I suppose, though we can’t care much about each other, can we?--Where is papa?” Frances had no breath to speak; she could not say a word. She looked at the new-comer with a gasp. Who was she? And who was papa? Was it some strange mistake which had brought her here? But then the question, “Are you Frances?” showed that it could not be a mistake. “I beg your pardon,” she said; “I don’t understand. This is--Mr Waring’s. You are looking for--your father?” “Yes, yes,” cried the other impatiently; “I know. You can’t imagine I should have come here and taken possession if I had not made sure first! You are well enough known in this little place. There was no trouble about it.--And the house looks nice, and this must be a fine view when there is light to see it by.--But where is papa? They told me he was always to be found at this hour.” Frances felt the blood ebb to her very finger-points, and then rush back like a great flood upon her heart. She scarcely knew where she was standing or what she was saying in her great bewilderment. “Do you mean--_my_ father?” she said. The other girl answered with a laugh: “You are very particular. I mean our father, if you prefer it. Your father--my father. What does it matter?--Where is he? Why isn’t he here? It seems he must introduce us to each other. I did not think of any such formality. I thought you would have taken me for granted,” she said. Frances stood thunderstruck, gazing, listening, as if eyes and ears alike fooled her. She did not seem to know the meaning of the words. They could not, she said to herself, mean what they seemed to mean--it was impossible. There must be some wonderful, altogether unspeakable blunder. “I don’t understand,” she said again, in a piteous tone. “It must be some mistake.”