Cara went back to her chair, without a word; her heart beat high--her face grew crimson in spite of herself. She retreated to her seat and took up a book, and began to read at a furious pace. She did not very well know what it was about; but she had read a long chapter before John, going downstairs and then coming up again in a middle-aged, respectable butler’s leisurely way, could place the little tea-tray on the table near her. There was but one cup. It was evident that she was expected to take this refreshment alone. She gave a little good-humoured nod at the man as he looked round, with the comprehensive glance of his class, to see if anything wanted removal--and went on reading. The book was about unconscious cerebration, and other not highly intelligible things. Some of the phrases in it got entangled, like the straws and floating rubbish on a stream, with the touch of wild commotion in her mind, and so lived in her after this mood and a great many others had passed away. She went on reading till she had heard John go down, and reach his own regions at the bottom of the stairs. Then she put the book down, and looked up, as if to meet the look of some one else who would understand her. Poor child! and there was no one there. This was Cara’s first night in the Square. CHAPTER XI. MRS. MEREDITH. It was Mrs. Meredith who lived next door--an old friend, who was the only person Mrs. Beresford had permitted to come and see her when she returned ill, and of whom Miss Cherry had felt with confidence that Cara would find a friend in her. She had lived there almost ever since Cara was born, with her two sons, boys a little older than Cara; a pretty gentle woman, ‘not clever,’ her friends said--‘silly,’ according to some critics, of whom poor Annie Beresford had been one--but very popular everywhere and pleasant; a woman whom most people were glad to know. It would be hard to say exactly in what her charm lay. There were handsomer women than she to be met with by the score who were much less beloved--and as for her mind, it scarcely counted at all in the estimate of her merits. But she was kind, sympathetic, sweet-mannered--affectionate and caressing when it was becoming to be so--smiling and friendly everywhere. Great talkers liked her, for she would listen to them as if she enjoyed it; and silent people liked her, for she did not look bored by their side, but would make a little play of little phrases, till they felt themselves actually amusing. She had very sweet liquid brown eyes--not too bright or penetrating, but sympathetic always--and a soft, pretty white hand. She was not young, nor did she look younger than she was; but her sympathies flowed so readily, and her looks were so friendly, that she belonged to the younger part of the world always by natural right. Her boys were her chief thought and occupation. One of them was six, one four years older than Cara; so that Oswald was three-and-twenty and Edward on the eve of