Immediately after writing that letter Miss White seemed to grow very light-hearted indeed, and she laughed and chatted with Carry, and was exceedingly affectionate toward her sister. "And what do you think of your own home now, Gerty?" said Miss Carry, who had been making some small experiments in arrangement. "You mean, after my being among the savages?" said she. "Ah, it is too true, Carry. I have seen them in their war-paint; and I have shuddered at their spears; and I have made voyages in their canoes. But it is worth while going anywhere and doing anything in order to come back and experience such a sense of relief and quiet. Oh, what a delicious cushion! where did you get it, Carry?" She sank back in the rocking-chair out on this shaded veranda. It was the slumbering noontide of a July day the foliage above and about the Regent's Canal hung motionless in the still sunlight; and there was a perfume of roses in the air. Here, at last, was repose. She had said that her notion of happiness was to be let alone; and--now that she had despatched that forbidding letter--she would be able to enjoy a quiet and languor free from care. "Aha, Gerty, don't you know?" said the younger sister. "Well, I suppose, you poor creature, you don't know--you have been among the tigers and crocodiles so long. That cushion is a present from Mr. Lemuel to me--to me, mind, not to you--and he brought it all the way from Damascus some years ago. Oh, Gerty, if I was only three years older, shouldn't I like to be your rival, and have a fight with you for him!" "I don't know what you mean," said the elder sister, sharply. "Oh, don't you! Poor, innocent thing! Well, I am not going to quarrel with you this time, for at last you are showing some sense. How you ever could have thought of Mr. Howson, or Mr. Brook, or you know whom--I never could imagine; but here is some one now whom people have heard of--some one with fame like yourself--who will understand you. Oh Gerty, hasn't he lovely eyes?" "Like a gazelle," said the other. "You know what Mr. ---- said--that he never met the appealing look of Mr. Lemuel's eyes without feeling in his pockets for a biscuit." "He wouldn't say anything like that about you, Gerty," Carry said reproachfully. "Who wouldn't?" "Mr. Lemuel." "Oh, Carry, don't you understand that I am so glad to be allowed to talk nonsense? I have been all strung up lately--like the string of a violin. Everything _au grand serieux_ I want to be idle, and to chat, and to talk nonsense. Where did you get that bunch of stephanotis?" "Mr. Lemuel brought it last evening. He knew you were coming home to-day. Oh Gerty, do you know I have seen your portrait, though it isn't finished yet; and you look--you look like an inspired prophetess. I never saw anything so lovely!" "Indeed!" said Miss White, with a smile; but she was pleased.