“Must never be?” Lydia looked across the room to the sofa on which Mrs. Oliver was still sitting, with mingled wonder and pity. And yet, she reflected, she herself was not so very glad to get back to England. That was a fate which, under certain circumstances, might be bearable enough. “No; I dare not risk her among the fogs and damps. She is--well, perhaps, I ought not to say she is delicate, not now: but she was so during all her earlier life. You see, I forget that she is not still my little girl, but has now little girls of her own. That makes a difference. No, she was never to go to England, that I vowed almost as soon as she was born. The cold and the damp were fatal to her mother, and Rita is so like her; I dare not risk my daughter there.” “But,” said Lydia, “it is not always cold and damp. It is very lovely here, but people are prejudiced, and talk nonsense about England. If it is so long since you were there, you have, perhaps, forgotten. We have something else besides rain and fog.” “Yes, yes; I know there is an occasional fine day. You come from the south of England probably, Miss Joscelyn, where some sort of fine weather is to be found?” “No, indeed, I come from the north--quite the north, close to Scotland; and we have often beautiful weather,” said Lydia, with a glow of patriotism; “a different blue from this, and a great deal more cloud; but then that is what makes it so beautiful, flying over the hills, clearing off in a moment, then dropping again like a white veil, and the sun bursting out all in a moment like a surprise. When one comes to think of it the variety is the charm. Here you have the same thing all day long, and every day; but with us the skies are never the same for an hour; and as for cold, I never feel any cold; one takes a brisk walk, and that is all that is wanted.” “I see you enter into the spirit of the country. The north? That is where my son-in-law comes from.” The Vice-Consul always said to himself that he put in his tone a note of interrogation to this question; but Lydia took it for a statement, and received it without hesitation. “Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “I think I heard you say that you knew--relations of his? Are they neighbours of yours? I am interested in everything about Harry.” “That puzzles me,” she said, “to hear you call him Harry. I thought he was Isaac Oliver. I know some one of that name.” “A neighbour? It is, as you say, an uncommon name. I might have thought of that. Yes, quite an uncommon name. And your Mr. Oliver, Miss Joscelyn, was----?” “Oh,” cried Lydia, forgetting all previous cautions, with a laugh at the unnecessary title, “he was not _Mr._ Oliver at all. He was a man whom--he was a man--he was a----”