"Now, however, the case is different," said Beatrice, authoritatively, as she sat in her little pony carriage at the front door, waiting for her cousin to come down stairs. "It will do her good to shake up her ideas a little, and draw her out of herself. And if she does take an undue interest in people of the lower orders"--looking at her mother with mocking bright eyes--"it will be so much the better. Perhaps Signor Scampadini, with that lovely tenor of his----" "Oh, no, Beatrice. Mr. Kingston would very much dislike anything of that sort." "Anything of what sort?" laughed Mrs. Reade. "Mr. Kingston can trust me, mamma. And we must counteract Mr. Dalrymple somehow." "Mr. Kingston himself ought to counteract him--if there is any counteracting necessary." "Ah!" sighed Mrs. Reade, shaking her head slightly. She said no more, but in her own mind she put that argument aside as useless. There had been a time, indeed, when she had believed Mr. Kingston sufficient for all purposes, on the basis of Rachel's apparently modest spiritual needs; but now she knew she had been mistaken. The girl had grown and changed since then, and the old conditions no longer fitted her. The little woman was disappointed, but she was too wise to make a fuss about it. Difficulties had come that she ought to have foreseen and provided for, but since they had come, they must be dealt with. "Ah!" she said, with a sigh and a smile; and that was the extent of her lamentation. So Rachel went away with her to South Yarra, and had a brilliant week of it. The weather was warm and lovely, and the soft air full of the delicate intoxication of spring time, to which she was peculiarly susceptible. She basked in sunshine as she rattled about Melbourne streets and suburbs in Beatrice's little basket-carriage, and as she sat in Beatrice's bow-windowed drawing-room, gossiping over afternoon tea. She had a month's allowance of society dissipation of the most seductive description in that week--music, dancing, _tableaux vivants_, dressing, shopping, sightseeing, swarms of gay and witty company from noon till midnight, every conceivable kind attention from her cousin, and the most flattering homage from everybody else--all in an easy and cosy way that was very charming and luxurious. It certainly cheered her up a great deal. We _do_ get cheered, against our intention and desire, against our belief almost, by these little amenities that appeal to our superficial tastes, even when we seem to ourselves to be full of trouble. It is well for us that we are so susceptible to light impressions, to the subtle influences of the daily commonplace, which are like delicate touches to a crude picture in their effect upon our lives; if we were not, our lives would hardly be worth having sometimes, crippled as they are with great sudden griefs and disappointments, and wasted with the lingering paralysis of spiritual loss and want.