think of nothing but the future parties to be given there, and whether perhaps young Mr. Swinford---- Lady William could not be supposed to be particularly happy during this review of the things that had been and the things that would have to be, but she laughed to herself again. That eternal question could never be left out, she said to herself. ‘What are you laughing at, mother?’ said Mab, as she came in, bringing with her a rush of cold, and that smell of the fresh air which changes the whole atmosphere of a little room in a moment. Her whole person was breathing it out. Her hat, which she took off when she came in, was full of it, sending the mingled fragrance and chill into every corner of the tiny little fire-lit room. Lady William shivered a little. ‘You have brought in the draught with you, Mab, like a gale at sea.’ ‘I am sorry,’ said the girl, turning back to shut the door. And she came to the fire and knelt down before it, and repeated, with the pertinacity of youth, ‘What were you laughing at, mother?’ ‘Nothing very much--chiefly at Aunt Jane and this new thing she has got in her head!’ ‘Oh, Aunt Jane,’ said Mab carelessly, as if that was a subject already exhausted. Then, however, she added, still pertinacious, ‘but what is the new thing she has got into her head?’ Lady William thought of a certain baby in a book who wanted to see ‘the wheels go wound,’ and laughed a little once more. ‘How do you know that I can tell you?’ she said. ‘Don’t you tell me everything, mammy?’ said Mab, rubbing her head against her mother’s arm like an affectionate puppy: and Lady William stroked her child’s hair, which glistened with a drop or two of cold dew upon it from the dripping branches outside. ‘You have pretty hair, Mab,’ she said softly, with praise, which was a caress. ‘Have I? Oh, I don’t think there’s anything pretty about me,’ said the girl. ‘What a little fool I was not to take after you, mother! It is you who are the pretty one: and Emmy has the impudence to be a little like you--Emmy, and not me! But never mind. What has Aunt Jane got in her head?’ ‘The pertinacious child! She has this in her head, that she wants to drag me to-morrow to go with her and call at the Hall.’ ‘Oh, is that all?’ said Mab. She felt that her lively curiosity, which was a pleasant sensation, had been wasted. But then she added, ‘Is there anything that makes it of importance that she should call at the Hall?’ How the child swept over the ashes of the volcanoes, raising a little pungent dust, which got into her mother’s throat: but she laughed a little, for Aunt Jane was always fair game. ‘Do you remember the Bennets in _Pride and Prejudice_,’ she said, ‘and the commotion there was when Mr. Bingley first came?’