“Caro will have forgotten me in three months,” reflected Lady Bell a little disconsolately as she sat idle, for a wonder, in the bright, pleasant room. “Goody Martin may have been carried off to a better world with her cough and rheumatism. Master Charles may have got his colours, and have marched to t’other end of this world, and been engaged in an ‘affair,’ as the newspapers call it, like the one at Lexington which we were reading of. Your imitation Japan screens will be finished, but I shan’t have seen every stage of the process.” “You won’t miss much there, Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon. Lady Bell continued her catalogue. “You will have read out Plutarch’s Lives, and I shall not have had the advantage of hearing your remarks as you went along. The spring will have come back, and be well established, but I shall have taken a leap over the first snowdrops, crocuses, primroses, and violets. I wonder if I shall gain enough to make up for the loss? I begin to wonder even if I shall be permitted to come back, and find everything as I left it here, after I have been so mad as to quit, of my own free will, our dear, sweet home?” “It is not in that you need fear change,” asserted Mrs. Sundon cheerfully, “if you come back to us unchanged yourself, Bell, that is the question.” “Oh, as to that there is no fear,” declared Lady Bell confidently, recovering her spirit. “I must ever be true to Summerhill. But ah, Sunny!” she relapsed the next moment, “we have been so happy here—so much happier than I ever was before. Does it not seem doubtful whether the same happiness can be again in this troublous world?” “If not the same, then let us trust that there may be happiness of another kind to supply the place of the past happiness,” Mrs. Sundon encouraged the girl. “Come, Bell, I will not have you low on this our last night.” Lady Bell forgot all her forebodings when she found herself drawing near to London again. A hundred years ago, when communication was slow and difficult, and knowledge little spread, the civilisation of the country centered peculiarly in the capital. It was the source of every public movement, the winter seat of the court, the high place of noble and splendid society, the chosen resort of wisdom, wit, learning, and accomplishments under every guise. It had its gross evils, no doubt, but so great were its counterbalancing advantages and its general irresistible fascination, that even the most modest and sober moralists and philosophers, of all ages and both sexes, sighed longingly to enjoy the benefits and charms of town life. And Lady Bell was town bred. The very smoke smelt sweet, and the cries sounded melodious to her ears.