Mrs. Dean had been a good deal with the Hawtreys during their four days at Lucerne, and Dorothy had felt her society a great assistance to her in supporting the first brunt of public remark. She was the only person who had spoken to Dorothy of what all the others were talking about. They were standing together on the deck of a steamer going up the lake, when Mrs. Dean said suddenly, 'I know, Dorothy, you will not mind an old friend speaking to you, and I really want to congratulate you heartily on breaking off your match. I don't know the exact reasons that influenced you, but I am sure that you were right. I don't think you would ever have been really happy with him; there would never have been any true sympathy between you. Some women could be content with rank and wealth, but I am sure you could not.' 'No. I think it was a mistake altogether, Mrs. Dean,' Dorothy said thoughtfully. 'I did not become engaged to him for that--I mean for rank and wealth. I don't say they did not count for something, but I honestly did think I liked him, and there was no real reason for its being broken off, except that I found that I had made a mistake. I should not say so, of course, to anyone but an old friend like you. I shall never say anything about it, but let people think what they like; and I know that you will never repeat it.' 'Certainly not, Dorothy; but if you don't say it in words I think everyone could see that, at least, there is no regret on your part at the match being broken off. The wonder won't last long--another week and something fresh will be talked of, and by next year the whole affair will have died away. People have wonderfully short memories in society. Do you know, I rather take credit to myself as a prophetess, for on the evening of that dinner party where I last met you and Halliburn together, I told Captain Hampton that I didn't think your match would ever come off. By the bye, what a nice fellow he is. He is wonderfully little changed since I knew him as a boy down in Lincolnshire, before he went into the army. Sometimes boys change so when they become men, that it is quite a pleasure to meet one who has grown up exactly as you might have expected he would do. You saw a good deal of him I believe?' 'Yes, at the beginning of the season. We did not see so much of him afterwards. I don't think he is so little changed as you do.' Mrs. Dean gave a quick, keen glance at Dorothy, who was looking a little dreamily at the mountains at the head of the lake. 'No?' she said carelessly. 'Well, of course, you knew him better than I did; he was so often over at your father's. You were but a child then and I daresay that you endowed him, as most young girls do boys older than themselves, with all sorts of impossible qualities.' 'No; I don't know that it was that,' Dorothy said; 'but he seems to me to be changed a good deal in many respects; he was almost like an elder brother of mine then.'