Hildegarde’s first feeling upon Bella’s return was that since the writing of that final note from London, and the dispatching of the postponement notice, the trouble, whatever it had been, was patched up. Impossible to think there was a cloud in her sky. Not matured at all; only a little thinner and, save for that, exactly the same Bella—“unthinking, idle, wild, and young.” But as the minutes went by and she ran from one familiar thing to another in garden and house, with greeting and gay comment, spinning out the time till she and Hildegarde should be alone together, the older girl began to have her doubts. Was Bella as happy as she pretended, flitting about with all her “dear Mars?” Nothing possible to gather from her eagerness to be assured that so far from being forgotten, she was more than ever an object of interest and devotion. Nothing new Bella’s little weakness for wanting everybody to be visibly enlivened by her return from “abroad,” bringing her adorable frocks (for Bella’s American mama had come into money, and Bella was helping her to come out of a certain portion), bringing remembrances for everybody, bringing a whiff of foreign airs, and a touch of something exciting, exotic, into the lives of stay-at-home folk. Bella had always been one of those who, however much adored, would like to be adored yet a little more. She couldn’t bear that any one within reach of her influence should escape caring about her, and she cast a net uncommon wide. It was meant to enmesh even Hildegarde’s mother, partly because that lady was so little lavish in bestowing her affection, but mostly because if you were much in the Mar house it mattered enormously upon what terms you were with Mrs. Mar. But, as ill-luck would have it, Bella never thought of the lady once she was away from her. Though she had brought back scarf-pins for the boys, and a silver-mounted blackthorn for Mr. Mar, and a quite wonderful necklace for Hildegarde, there was nothing—nothing at all for Mrs. Mar—and it was serious.