Where she has been living! Frances grew redder and hotter in the flush of indignation that went over her. But she could not stand up and proclaim that it was from her home, her dear loggia, the place she loved best in the world, that the sketch was made. Already the bonds of another life were upon her, and she dared not do that. And then there was a little chorus of praise, which silenced her still more effectually. It was the group of palms which she had been so simply proud of, which--as she had never forgotten--had made her father say that she had grown up. Lady Markham had placed it on a small easel on her table; but Frances could not help feeling that this was less for any pleasure it gave her mother, than in order to make a little exhibition of her own powers. It was, to be sure, in her own honour that this was done--and what so natural as that the mother should seek to do her daughter honour? but Frances was deeply sensitive, and painfully conscious of the strange tangled web of motives, which she had never in her life known anything about before. Had the little picture been hung in her mother’s bedroom, and seen by no eyes but her own, the girl would have found the most perfect pleasure in it; but here, exhibited as in a public gallery, examined by admiring eyes, calling forth all the incense of praise, it was with a mixture of shame and resentment that Frances found it out. It produced this result, however, that Sir Thomas rose, as in duty bound, to examine the performance of the daughter of the house; and presently young Ramsay, who had been watching his opportunity, took the place by her side. “I have been waiting for this,” he said, with his air of pathos. “I have so many things to ask you, if you will let me, Miss Waring.” “Surely,” Frances said. “Your sketch is very sweet--it is full of feeling--there is no colour like that of the Riviera. It is the Riviera, is it not?” “Oh yes,” cried Frances, eager to seize the opportunity of making it apparent that it was not only where she had been living, as her mother said. “It is from Bordighera, from our loggia, where I have lived all my life.” “You will find no colour and no vegetation like that near London,” the young man said. To this Frances replied politely that London was full of much more wonderful things, as she had always heard; but felt somewhat disappointed, supposing that his communications to her were to be more interesting than this. “And the climate is so very different,” he continued. “I am very often sent out of England for the winter, though this year they have let me stay. I have been at Nice two seasons. I suppose you know Nice? It is a very pretty place; but the wind is just as cold sometimes as at home. You have to keep in the sun; and if you always keep in the sun, it is warm even here.” “But there is not always sun here,” said Frances.