“Ah, well!” said Aunt Sophy, “that is very true. Of course our happiness depends very much upon other people. And you have done a great deal for mine, Mr. Everard. It would not have done me much good to have people telling me to be cheerful if my poor little darlings had been at the bottom of the lake.” Here Aunt Sophy stopped and cried a little, then went on. “You are not, I think, living at our hotel, but I hope you will stay and dine with us. Oh, yes, I cannot take any refusal. We may have made your acquaintance informally, but few people can have so good a reason for wishing to know you. This is my niece, Miss Trevanion, Mr. Everard; the little children you saved are my brother’s children--the late Mr. Trevanion of Highcourt.” Rosalind listened with her heart beating high. Was it possible that he would receive the introduction as if he had known nothing of her before? He rose and turned towards her, made once more that slightly stiff, too elaborate bow, and was silent. No, worse than that, began to say something about being happy to make--acquaintance. “Aunt Sophy,” said Rosalind, stepping forward, “you are under a mistake. Mr. Everard knows us well enough. I met him before we left Highcourt.” And then she, too, paused, feeling with sudden embarrassment that there was a certain difficulty in explaining their meetings, a difficulty of which she had not thought. It was he now who had the advantage which she had felt to lie with herself. “It is curious how things repeat themselves,” he said. “I had once the pleasure of recovering a boat that had floated away from Miss Trevanion on the pond at Highcourt, but I could not have ventured to claim acquaintance on so small an argument as that.” Rosalind was silenced--her mind began to grow confused. It was not true that this was all, and yet it was not false. She said nothing; if it were wrong, she made herself an accomplice in the wrong; and Aunt Sophy’s exclamations soon put an end to the incident. “So you had met before!” she cried. “So you know Highcourt! Oh, what a very small world this is!--everybody says so, but it is only now and then that one is sensible. But you must tell us all about it at dinner. We dine at the _table d’hôte_, if you don’t mind. It is more amusing, and I don’t like to shut up Rosalind with only an old lady like me for her company. You like it too? Oh, well, that is quite nice. Will you excuse us now, Mr. Everard, while we prepare for dinner? for that is the dressing-bell just ringing, and they allow one so little time. Give me your hand, dear, to help me up. You see I am quite crippled,” Mrs. Lennox said, complacently, forgetting how nimbly she had sprung from her chair with a child under each arm to greet their deliverer. She limped a little as she went out of the room on Rosalind’s arm. She was quite sure that her rheumatism made her limp; but sometimes she forgot that she had rheumatism, which is a thing that will happen in such cases now and then.