No later than the first Sunday after Mrs Brunton's return these fine sentiments were put to the test: for Mr Fitzroy appeared in the afternoon, early, with the full intention, as was evident, of staying as long as he should be permitted to stay. Nelly had not forgotten him at all in that little interval. He had intruded into her mind a number of times, to her annoyance and discomfiture. Why should she keep wondering whether he would come? Better that he had come and gone, and Nelly had never thrown a thought after him. Why should she think about this man, or whether she should ever see him again? But she did, in spite of herself, perhaps because he was the only figure visible on her way, where there had been once so many. Her house was a nice little house, made in a sort of imitation of that country house which is the English ideal. In France and other countries the better houses of the village are built like town houses--high, with rows of shuttered windows and a big staircase. But in England it is always the country house that is copied--windows opening upon a little lawn, mimic trees, shrubberies, conservatories, the walls covered with climbing plants and roses. Nelly's villa had a little verandah on one side, a little hall, with a tiger skin--one of poor Jack's trophies--spread out in it; a drawing-room full of Indian curiosities. She went and came by the drawing-room window oftener than by the door, and so did her intimates the clergyman's wife and daughters, who would run round through the garden and tap at the pane. Of course Mr Fitzroy did not do this. He came decorously through the hall, ushered in by the maid, and was received with a little state by Mrs Brunton, who had her two children with her--little Jack, aged five, and Maysey, aged three. These little people remained playing in the room during the greater part of the interview, in which scarcely a word was said about music. Mr Fitzroy took the little girl on his knee, and patted the boy on the head, and asked them their names. "Ah, Maysey," he said, "the same as your cousin, Miss May Bampton." "Yes, the same: for they are called after the same person, a great authority in the family," answered Mrs Brunton. This was the unexceptionable character of their talk.