“We shall be delighted to see you, my dear,” said Mrs. Despard. “You may be sure of that. Come as soon, and as often as possible.” And so the matter was decided, and Lisbeth had not the power to draw back, if she had determined to do so. “You must have known Miss Crespigny quite a long time,” Georgie Esmond said, cheerfully, to Anstruthers, before she went away with her father. “Mrs. Despard said something about your having met her at that little Welsh place, Pen’yllan wasn’t it? And you haven’t been at Pen’yllan to stay for two or three years.” “You ought not to have kept such a charming creature to yourself for three years, my boy,” said the old colonel. “I should think not, indeed,” chimed in Miss Georgie. “It was selfish, and we are never selfish with him, are we, papa? We show him all our nice people, don’t we?” “But,” said Anstruthers, “I have not seen Miss Crespigny once during the three years. After leaving Pen’yllan, we lost sight of each other, somehow or other, and did not meet again until a short time ago, and then it was quite by accident.” “It was very careless of you to lose her then,” protested Miss Georgie. “I would not have lost her for the world. Gentlemen are so cold in their friendships. I don’t believe you ever really loved any of your friends in your life, Mr. Hector.” Anstruthers smiled a satirical smile. “Ought I to have loved Miss Crespigny?” he demanded. “Ought I to begin to love her now? If you think it is my duty, I will begin to do it at once, Georgie.” The girl shook her pretty head reproachfully. “Oh!” she said, “that is always the way you talk, you grand young gentlemen. It is the fashion to be sarcastic, and not to admire anybody very much, or anything but yourselves,” saucily. “And you would sneer at your best friends rather than not be in the fashion. I am sure I don’t know what the world is coming to.” “Who is sarcastic now, I should like to know?” said Anstruthers. “I think it is Miss Georgie Esmond, who out-Herods Herod. Admire ourselves, indeed! We only do what we are taught to do. What women themselves teach us----” “What!” exclaimed Georgie. “Do we teach you to admire yourselves, and nothing else?” “No,” was his answer. “You do not teach us that, but you do worse. Not you, my kind, honest Georgie, but women who would have us believe they are as honest and tender. They teach us that if we cling to our first beliefs, we are fools, and deserve to be laughed at; they teach us to sneer, and then scold us prettily for sneering; they leave us nothing to believe in, and then make sad, poetic speeches about our want of faith. There are men in the world for whom it would have been better if they had never seen a woman.” Georgie Esmond’s eyes opened wider and wider. She did not understand such bitterness. She was a simple, healthful-minded girl, and had seen very little of the world but its pleasant side.