Frances was not able to say any more. She was stifled by the commotion of her feelings, her heart beating so wildly in her breast, her emotion reaching the intolerable. The brougham stopped, and she sprang out and ran into the house, hurrying up-stairs to her own room. Constance, more surprised and disconcerted than she could have believed possible, nevertheless came in with an air of great composure, saying a word in passing to the astonished servant at the door. She was quite amiable always to the people about her. She walked up-stairs, remarking, as she passed, a pair of new vases with palms in them, which decorated the staircase, and which she approved. She opened the drawing-room door in her pretty, languid-stately, always leisurely way. “How are you, mamma? Frances has run up-stairs; but here am I, just come back,” she said. Lady Markham rose from her seat with a little scream of astonishment. “CONSTANCE! It is not possible. Who would have dreamed of seeing you!” she cried. “Oh yes, it is quite possible,” said Constance, when they had kissed, with a prolonged encounter of lips and cheeks. “Surely, you did not think I could keep very long away?” “My darling, did you get home-sick, or mammy-sick as Markham says, after all your philosophy?” “I am so glad to see you, mamma, and looking so well. No, not home-sick, precisely, dear mother, but penetrated with the folly of staying _there_, where nothing was ever doing, when I might have been in the centre of everything: which is saying much the same thing, though in different words.” “In very different words,” said Lady Markham, resuming her seat with a smile. “I see you have not changed at all, Con. Will you have any tea? And did you leave--your home there--with as little ceremony as you left me!” “May I help myself, mamma? don’t you trouble. It is very nice to see your pretty china, instead of Frances’ old bizarre cups, which were much too good for me. Oh, I did not leave my--home. I--brought it back with me.” “You brought----?” “My father with me, mamma.” “Oh!” Lady Markham said. She was too much astonished to say more. “Perhaps it was because he got very tired of me, and thought there was no other way of getting rid of me; perhaps because he was tired of it himself. He came at last like a lamb. I did not really believe it till we were on the boat, and Algy Muncastle turned up, and I introduced him to my father. You should have seen how he stared.” “Oh!” said Lady Markham again; and then she added faintly: “Is--is he here?” “You mean papa? I left him at aunt Caroline’s. In the circumstances, that seemed the best thing to do.”