"How d' do," said Mildred, staring over her head. "Don't detain Lord Wensleydown, please, because Lady Harrowfield hates to be kept waiting." Theodora rose and smiled, while she said to Barbara: "I am rather tired. Mayn't I go to my room for a little rest before dinner?" "Take him, Lady Mildred, do," said Hector; "we don't want him," and he laughed gayly. His beautiful, tender angel might be a match for these people after all. At any rate, he would be at her side to protect her from their claws. Lord Wensleydown frowned. Mildred was being a damned nuisance, he said to himself, and he insisted upon accompanying Theodora to the bottom of the great staircase, which rose to magnificent galleries in the hall adjoining the saloon. Sir Patrick had advanced and engaged Josiah in conversation. He knew his guests' ways and how they would boycott him, and, with a serious question like those Australian shares on the _tapis_, he was not going to have Josiah insulted and ruffled just yet. "Don't stay up-stairs all the time," Hector had managed to whisper, while Mildred and Lord Wensleydown stood arguing; "they are sure not to dine till nine; there are two hours before you need dress, and we can certainly find some nice sitting-room to talk in." But Theodora, with immense self-denial, had answered: "No, I want to write a long letter to papa and my sisters. I won't come down again until dinner." And he was forced to be content with the memory of her soft smile and the evident regret in her eyes. XXIV Theodora was greatly interested in Beechleigh. To her the home of her fathers was full of sentiment, and the thought that her grandfather had ruled there pleased her. How she would love and cherish it were it her home now! Every one of these fine things must have some memory. Then the pictures of as far back as she could remember came to her, and she saw again their poor lodgings in the cheap foreign towns and their often scanty fare. And with a fresh burst of love and pride in him, she remembered her father's invariable cheerfulness--cheerfulness and gayety--in such poverty! And after he had been used to--this! For all the descriptions of Captain Fitzgerald had given her no idea of the reality. Now she knew what love meant, and could realize her mother's story. Oh, she would have acted just in the same way, too.