There was a party in the house, which included Claude Ramsay, and Sir Thomas, the elder person in whom Lady Markham had thought there could be nothing particularly interesting. He was a very frequent member of the family party, all the same; and now that they were living under the same roof, Frances did not find him without interest. There was also a lady with two daughters, whose appearance was very interesting to the girl. They reminded her a little of Constance, and of the difficulty she had found in finding subjects on which to converse with her sister. The Miss Montagues knew a great many people, and talked of them continually; but Frances knew nobody. She listened with interest, but she could add nothing either to their speculations or recollections. She did not know anything about the contrivances which brought about the marriage between Cecil Gray and Emma White. She was utterly incompetent even to hazard an opinion as to what Lady Milbrook would do _now_; and she did not even understand about the hospitals which they visited and “took an interest” in. She tried very hard to get some little current with which she could make herself acquainted in the river of their talk; but nothing could be more difficult. Even when she brought out her sketch-book and opened ground upon that subject--about which the poor little girl modestly believed she knew by experience a very little--she was silenced in five minutes by their scientific acquaintance with washes, and glazing, and body colour, and the laws of composition. Frances did not know how to compose a picture. She said: “Oh no; I do not make it up in my head at all; I only do what I see.” “You mean you don’t formulate rules,” said Maud. “Of course you don’t mean that you merely imitate, for that is tea-board style; and your drawings are quite pretty. I like that little bit of the coast.” “How well one knows the Riviera,” said Ethel; “everybody who goes there has something to show. But I am rather surprised you don’t keep to one style. You seem to do a little of everything. Don’t you feel that flower-painting rather spoils your hand for the larger effects?” “It wants such a very different distribution of light and shade,” said the other sister. “You have to calculate your tones on such a different scale. If you were working at South Kensington or any other of the good schools----” “I should not advise her to do that--should you, Maud?--there is such a long elementary course. But I suppose you did your freehand, and all that, in the schoolroom?” Frances did not know how to reply. She put away her little sketch with a sense of extreme humiliation. “Oh, I am afraid I am not fit to talk about it at all,” she said. “I don’t even know what words to use. It has been all imitation, as you say.”