“I am not prepared to think anything in you disagreeable, my dear,” said her mother, kissing her--but with a sigh. This sigh Frances echoed in a burst of tears when the door closed and she found herself alone--alone, quite alone, more so than she had ever been in her life, she whispered to herself, in the shock of the unreasonable and altogether fantastic disappointment which had followed her ecstasy of pleasure. Most likely it meant nothing at all but the reaction from that too highly raised level of feeling. “No; I am not disappointed,” Lady Markham was saying down-stairs. She was standing before the genial blaze of the fire, looking into it with her head bent and a serious expression on her face. “Perhaps I was too much delighted for a moment; but she, poor child, now that she has looked at me a second time, she is a little, just a little disappointed in me. That’s rather hard for a mother, you know; or I suppose you don’t know.” “I never was a mother,” said Markham. “I should think it’s very natural. The little thing has been forming the most romantic ideas. If you had been an angel from heaven----” “Which I am not,” she said with a smile, still looking into the fire. “Heaven be praised,” said Markham. “In that case, you would not have suited me--which you do, mammy, you know, down to the ground.” She gave a half glance at him, a half smile, but did not disturb the chain of her reflections. “That’s something, Markham,” she said. “Yes; it’s something. On my side, it is a great deal. Don’t go too fast with little Fan. She has a deal in her. Have a little patience, and let her settle down her own way.” “I don’t feel sure that she has not got her father’s temper; I saw something like it in her eyes.” “That is nonsense, begging your pardon. She has got nothing of her father in her eyes. Her eyes are like yours, and so is everything about her. My dear mother, Con’s like Waring, if you like. This one is of our side of the house.” “Do you really think so?” Lady Markham looked up now and laid her hand affectionately upon his shoulder, and laughed. “But, my dear boy, you are as like the Markhams as you can look. On my side of the house, there is nobody at all, unless, as you say----” “Frances,” said the little man. “I told you--the best of the lot. I took to her in a moment by that very token. Therefore, don’t go too fast with her, mother. She has her own notions. She is as stanch as a little--Turk,” said Markham, using the first word that offered. When he met his mother’s eye, he retired a little, with the air of a man who does not mean to be questioned; which naturally stimulated curiosity in her mind. “How have you found out that she is stanch, Markham?” “Oh, in half-a-dozen ways,” he answered, carelessly. “And she will stick to her father through thick and thin, so mind what you say.” Then Lady Markham began to bemoan herself a little gently, before the fire, in the most luxurious of easy-chairs.