And oh, how different it must be in town, where the season was just beginning, and Frances, that little country thing, who would care nothing about it, was going to be presented! Constance, it is scarcely necessary to say, had been told what her sister was to wear; indeed, having gone through the ceremony herself, and knowing exactly what was right, could have guessed without being told. How would Frances look with her little demure face and her neat little figure? Constance had no unkindly feeling towards her sister. She fully recognised the advantages of the girl, who was like mamma; and whose youthful freshness would be enhanced by the good looks of the little stately figure beside her, showing the worst that Frances was likely to come to, even when she got old. Constance knew very well that this was a great advantage to a girl, having heard the frank remarks of Society upon those beldams who lead their young daughters into the world, presenting in their own persons a horrible caricature of what those girls may grow to be. But Frances would look very well, the poor exile decided, sitting on the low wall of one of the terraces, gazing through the grey olives over the blue sea. She would look very well. She would be frightened, yet amused, by the show. She would be admired--by people who liked that quiet kind. Markham would be with them; and Claude, perhaps Claude, if it was a fine day, and there was no east in the wind! She stopped to laugh to herself at this suggestion, but her colour rose at the same time, and an angry question woke in her mind. Claude! She had told Mrs Gaunt she was engaged to him still. Was she engaged to him? Or had he thrown her off, as she threw him off, and perhaps found consolation in Frances? At this thought the olive-gardens in their coolness grew intolerable, and the sea the dreariest of prospects. She jumped up, and notwithstanding the sun and the dust, went down the broad road, the old Roman way, where there was no shade nor shelter. It was not safe, she said to herself, to be left there with her thoughts. She must break the spell or die.