“I think French people are always dancing,” said Mrs. Lennox, with a little sigh, “or rattling on in that way, laughing and jesting as if life were all a play. I am sure I don’t know how they keep it up, always going on like that. But Rosalind does not care for those sort of dances. Had there been one in our own hotel among people we know-- But I must say madame is rather remiss: she does not exert herself to provide amusement. If I came here another year, as I suppose I must, now that I have begun to have a koor--” “Oh, yes, they will keep you to it. This is the second year I have been made to come. I hope you will be here, Mrs. Lennox, for then I shall be sure to see you, and--” Here he paused a little and added “the children,” in a lower voice. “It is so nice of you, a young man, to think of the children,” said Aunt Sophy, gratefully; “but they say it does make you like people when you have done them a great service. As to meeting us, I hope we shall meet sooner than that. When you come to England you must--” Here Mrs. Lennox paused, feeling John’s malign influence by her side, and conscious of a certain kick of his foot and the suppressed snort with which he puffed out the smoke of his cigar. She paused; but then she reflected that, after all, the Elms was her own, and she was not in the habit of consulting John as to whom she should ask there. And then she went on, with a voice that trembled slightly, “Come down to Clifton and see me; I shall be so happy to see you, and I think I know some of your Essex relations,” Mrs. Lennox said. John Trevanion, who had been leaning back with the legs of his chair tilted in the air, came down upon them with a dint in the gravel, and thus approached himself nearer to the table in his mingled indignation at his sister’s foolishness, and eagerness to hear what the young fellow would find to say. This, no doubt, disturbed the even flow of the response, making young Everard start. “I don’t think I have any relations in Essex,” he said. “You are very kind. But I have not been in England for some years, and I don’t think I am very likely to go.” “Dear me!” said Mrs. Lennox, “I am very sorry. I hope you have not got any prejudice against home. Perhaps there is more amusement to be found abroad, Mr. Everard, and no doubt that tells with young men like you; but I am sure you will find after a while what the song says, that there is no place like home.” “Oh, no, I have no prejudice,” he said hurriedly. “There are reasons--family reasons.” Then he added, with what seemed to John, watching him eagerly, a little bravado, “The only relative I have is rather what you would call eccentric. She has her own ways of thinking. She has been ill-used in England, or at least she thinks so, and nothing will persuade her-- Ladies, you know, sometimes take strange views of things.”