‘You will find me in the library, if you want me,’ he said aloud. But in himself he said, with more confidence, ‘Mrs. Meredith will know;’ or rather, perhaps, if the truth must be said, he thought, ‘_She_ will know. She will see at once what ought to be done. She will tell me all about it to-night!’ And with this consolation he went into his library and betook himself to his important morning’s work. He had to verify a quotation, which he thought had been wrongly used in his friend Mr. Fortis’ book about Africa. He had to write to one or two Fellows of his pet Society, about a series of lectures on an interesting point of comparative science, which he thought the great authority on the subject might be persuaded to give. He had to write to Mr. Sienna Brown about a Titian which had been repainted and very much injured, and about which he had been asked to give his opinion by the noble proprietor, whom he had met on his return home. It will be perceived that it would have been a serious disadvantage to public interests had Mr. Beresford been required to withdraw his thoughts from such important matters, and occupy them with the education of an unremarkable girl. And Cara went upstairs. She had already seen cook, who had kindly told her what she thought would be ‘very nice’ for dinner, and had agreed humbly; but had not, perhaps, been quite so humble when cook entreated ‘Miss Cara, dear,’ with the confidence of an old servant, not to be frightened, and assured her that she’d soon get to know her papa’s ways. When she got to the drawing-room, she went first to the windows and looked out, and thought that a few more plants in the balcony would be an advantage, and recollected how she used to play in the Square, and gave a side-long glance at the railings of next door, wondering whether ‘the boys’ were at home, and if they had changed. Then she came in, and went to the fire, and looked at herself and the big silent room behind her in the great mirror over the mantelpiece. Cara was not vain--it was not to see how she looked that she gazed wistfully into that reflection of the room in which she was standing, so rich and full with all its pictures, its china, its tapestries and decorations confronting her like a picture, with one lonely little girl in it, in a dark blue dress and white collar, and big, sad, strained blue eyes. What a forlorn little thing that girl seemed! nobody to interchange looks with even, except herself in the glass; and the room so crowded with still life, so destitute of everything else: so rich, so warm, so beautiful, so poor, so destitute, so lonely! What was she to do with herself for the long, solitary day? She could not go out, unless she went with nurse, as she used to do when she was a child. She was an open-air girl, loving freedom, and had been used to roam about as she pleased in the sweet woods about the Hill. You may imagine how lost the poor child felt herself in those stony regions round the Square.