‘No, no, no,’ said Rose, making her mouth into a circle, and shaking her head. No other! No richer, better, more desirable lover! This was a thing that Keziah did not understand. Her face grew pale with wonder, even with awe. To jilt a gentleman for your own advancement in life, that might be comprehensible--but to do it to your own damage, and have cheeks like snowflakes in consequence--that was a thing she could not make out. It made her own position, with which she was already satisfied, feel twice as advantageous and comfortable; even though her marriage had not turned out so well for mother and the boys as Keziah had once hoped. Mr. Loseby came across the street, humming a little tune, to join them at dinner. He was shining from top to toe in his newest black suit, all shining, from his little varnished shoes to his bald head, and with the lights reflected in his spectacles. It was a great day for the lawyer, who was fond of both the girls, and who had an indulgent amity, mingled with contempt, for Mrs. Mountford herself, such as men so often entertain for their friends’ wives. He was triumphant in their arrival, besides, and very anxious to secure that they should return to the neighbourhood and settle among their old friends. He, too, however, after his first greetings were over, was checked in his rejoicings by the paleness of his favourite. ‘What have you been doing to Anne?’ were, after his salutations, the first words he said. ‘If anything has been done to her, it is her own doing,’ said Mrs. Mountford, with a little indignation. ‘Nothing has been done to me,’ said Anne, with a smile. ‘I hear that I am pale, though I don’t notice it. It is all your letters, Mr. Loseby, and the business you give me. I have to let mamma and Rose go to their dissipations by themselves.’ ‘Our dissipations! You do not suppose I have had spirits for much dissipation,’ said Mrs. Mountford, now fully reminded of her position as a widow, and with her usual high sense of duty, determined to live up to it. She pressed her handkerchief upon her eyelids once more, after the fashion she had dropped. ‘But it is true that I have tried to go out a little,’ she added, ‘more than I should have done at home--for Rose’s sake.’ ‘You were quite right,’ said the lawyer; ‘the young ones cannot feel as we do, they cannot be expected to go on in our groove. And Rose is blooming like her name. But I don’t like the looks of Anne. Have I been giving you so much business to do? But then, you see, I expected that you would have Mr. Douglas close at hand, to help you. Indeed, my only wonder was----’ Here Mr. Loseby broke off, and had a fit of coughing, in which the rest of the words were lost. He had surprised a little stir in the party, a furtive interchange of looks between Mrs. Mountford and Rose. And this roused the alarm of the sympathetic friend of the family, who, indeed, had wondered much--as he had begun to say--