The disgust with which she uttered the words was so comic, that all the others burst out laughing. And Fordham said-- “The Land of Afternoon was too strong for him. Shall you really pine much for Miss Ogilvie, Infanta?” “I shall miss her dreadfully,” said Babie, “and I think it is very stupid of her to leave mother, whom she has known all her life, and all of us, for a strange man she never saw till four months ago.” “Oh, Babie, you to be the author of a chivalrous romance!” said Fordham. “I was young and silly then,” said the young lady, who was within a month of sixteen. “And all your romances are to be henceforth without love,” said Armine. “I think they would be much more sensible,” said Babie. “Why do you all laugh so? Don’t you see how stupid poor Allen always is? And it can even spoil Miss Ogilvie, and make her inattentive.” “Poor Allen,” echoed one or two voices, in the same low tone, for as they peeped out beyond the orange-tree, Allen might be seen, extended on a many-coloured rug, in an exceedingly deplorable attitude. “O yes,” said Sydney; “but if one has such a--such a--such an object as that, one must expect to be stupid and miserable sometimes!” “She must have been worrying him again,” said Babie. “O yes, didn’t you see?” said Armine. “No, I remember you didn’t go out riding early to-day.” “No, I was finishing Miss Ogilvie’s wedding lace.” “Well, that French captain, that Elfie went on with at the commandant’s ball, came riding up in full splendour, and trotted alongside of her, chattering away, she bowing and smiling, and playing off all her airs, and at last letting him give her a great white flower. Didn’t you see it in her breast at breakfast? Poor Allen was looking as if he had eaten wormwood all the time when he was forced to fall back upon me, and I suppose he has been having it out with her and has got the worst of it.” “O, it is that, is it?” said Lord Fordham; “I thought she wanted to pique Allen, she was so empressee with me.” “If people will be so foolish as to care for a pretty face,” sagely said Sydney. “You know it is not only that,” said Babie; “Allen is bound in honour to marry Elvira, to repair the great injustice. It is a great pity she will not marry him now at once, but I think she is afraid, because then, you know, she would get to have a soul, like Undine, and she doesn’t want one yet.” “That’s a new view of the case,” said Lord Fordham in his peculiar lazy manner, “and taken allegorically it may be the true one.” “But one would like to have a soul,” said Sydney. “I’m not sure,” said Babie, with a great look of awe. “One would know it was best, but it would be very tremendous to feel all sorts of thoughts and perceptions swelling up in one.” “If that is the soul,” said Armine. “Which is the soul?” said Babie, “our understanding, or our feelings, or both?” “Both,” said Sydney, undoubtingly. “I don’t know,” said Babie. “Poor little Chico has double the heart of his mistress.”