‘Four years--that is a long time when people are fond of each other,’ said Anne, with a scarcely perceptible smile. Every individual at table instantly thought of the absent lover. ‘She is thinking that I will be dead and gone in four years, and she will be free,’ the angry father said to himself, with a vindictive sense that he was justified in the punishment he meant to inflict upon her. But Anne, indeed, was thinking of nothing of the kind, only with a visionary regret that in her own family there was no one to come eager over sea and land to be longed and prayed for with Fanny Woodhead’s anxious sisterly motherly passion. This was far, very far from the imagination of the others as a motive likely to produce such a sigh. ‘A brother from India is always anxiously looked for,’ said Mrs. Mountford, stepping in with that half-compunctious readiness to succour Anne which the knowledge of this day’s proceedings had produced in her. She did not, in fact, know what these proceedings had been, and they were in no way her fault. But still she felt a compunction. ‘They always bring such quantities of things with them,’ she added. ‘An Indian box is the most delightful thing to open. I had a brother in India, too----’ ‘I wish we had,’ said Rose, with a pout. Heathcote had been preoccupied: he had not been so ‘attentive’ as usual: and she wished for a brother instantly, ‘just to spite him,’ she said to herself. ‘Fanny is not thinking of the presents; but Rose, consider you are interested in it, too--that is another man for your dance.’ Rose clapped her hands. ‘We are looking up,’ she said. ‘Twenty men from Sandhurst, and six from Meadowlands, and Lady Prayrey Poule’s husband, and Fred Woodhead and Willie Ashley--for of course Willie is coming---- ’ ‘A dance at this time of the year is folly,’ said Mr. Mountford; ‘even in summer it is bad enough; but the only time of the year for entertainments in the country is when you have warm weather and short nights.’ ‘It was because of cousin Heathcote, papa. It is not often we have a man, a real relation, staying at Mount.’ ‘Heathcote! oh, so it is for your sake, Heathcote? I did not know that dancing was an attribute of reasonable beings after thirty,’ Mr. Mountford said. Then it was Anne who came to Heathcote’s aid. ‘You are not afraid of seeming frivolous?’ she said, giving him the kindest look he had yet seen in her eyes; and his heart was touched by it: he had not known that Anne’s eyes had been so fine--‘and it will please everybody. The county requires to be stirred up now and then. We like to have something to talk about, to say, “Are you going to the So-and-so’s on the 25th?”’ ‘An admirable reason certainly for trouble and expense. If you were electioneering, it might be reasonable; but I presume your woman’s rights are not so advanced yet as that. Miss Anne Mountford can’t stand for the county!’