The girl was standing by the open window, and she turned her head without otherwise moving, looking at the speaker with a pair of exceedingly discriminating eyes. “Bosh, my dear aunt!” she whispered confidingly to the blind-cord. “Yes,” pursued the lady, with the eager credulity of her first mother, ever ready to believe the last speaker when belief is convenient--“Yes. Sister Cecilia tells me that all the great men began in the Indian Service.” “Oh! I wonder where they finished. Royal Academy--finishing Academy. Regimentals and a gold frame--leaning heroically on a mild-looking cannon with battles in the background.” “Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Agar, who only half understood Dora Glynde at all times; “it is such a good thing for Jem. Such a splendid opportunity, you know!” “Yes,” echoed the girl, with a twist of her humorous lips. “Splendid!” She had turned again, and was looking out of the window across a soft old lawn where two Wellingtonians towered side by side like sentries. Without glancing in the direction of her companion she knew the expression of Mrs. Agar's face, the direction of her gaze; the very thought in her shallow mind. She knew that Mrs. Agar was sitting with her arms on the little davenport, gazing rapturously at the photograph of an insipid young man with a silk-faced smoking jacket; with clean linen, clean countenance, clean hands, immaculate hair, and a general air of being too weak to be mean. “Sister Cecilia,” went on the elder lady, “seems to know all about it.” It is useless to attempt concealment of the fact that at this juncture Dora Glynde made a face--an honest schoolgirl behind-your-back Face--indicative of supreme scorn for some person or persons unspecified. Hers was a countenance which lent itself admirably to the purpose, with lips full of humour, and capable, as such lips are, of expressing a great and wonderful tenderness. The face, _du reste_, was that of a healthy, fair-skinned English girl, liable to honest change from pale to pink, according to the dictates of an arbitrary climate. Her eyes were of a dark grey-blue, straightforward and steady, with a shadow of thought in them which made wise people respect her presence. She was not painfully beautiful, like the heroine of a novel--nor abnormally plain, like the antitype who has found her way into fiction, and there (alone) brings all hearts to her feet. “Is Jem glad?” she asked cheerfully. “Is he thirsting for gore and glory?” “Oh, delighted! Arthur will be so pleased too. Dear boy, _he_ is so interested in soldiers, but of course he could not go into the army! He is too delicate--besides, the life is rough, and the risks are very great.” Mrs. Agar was speaking with her head slightly inclined to one side, and she never raised her adoring eyes from the photograph of the insipid young man. Had she done so she would have seen a look of patient, if comic, resignation come over the face of her youthful companion at the mention of her son's name.