"The child is heavenly," she said often, with a gush of enthusiasm which made some smile, while others were touched, and yet others hoped that the little baronet "wouldn't be a prig!" So for the present all went if not wisely at least smoothly, as regarded Cyril. But as regarded Evelyn, matters were far different. Miss Devereux had sent for her in haste, on receipt of the sad news brought by General Villiers, feeling sure that the poor dear girl must be heartbroken, unable to give thought to lessons. Evelyn came, though not too willingly. She was not broken-hearted; and anybody less sentimental than Sybella would hardly have expected her to be so, for a father whom she had not seen during ten years. The loss was a loss, and Evelyn knew it; nevertheless she grudged missing the final examination before leaving school. It had been a settled matter that she should quit school after this term, to join her father either in India or in England. Now all was changed. Evelyn had to live at Ripley Brow, under the guardianship of an aunt whom she did not love. For the maiden lady of forty, with her unpractical ways, her pseudo-poetical tastes, her tendency to overstrained sentiment, her generally old fashioned ideas, never had "got on well," as the saying is, with the brilliant yet sensible and practical niece. Miss Devereux was secretly proud of Evelyn, but scarcely fond of her. Evelyn had learnt before eighteen what Sybella did not learn till after forty—to stand alone. She had not been hardened like Madame Collier, for everybody loved Evelyn, who came within reach of her magic wand; and love is softening. She was accustomed to the worship of her schoolfellows, to the devotion of governesses and friends. It was a matter of course in Evelyn's life that wherever she went, she should win affection. The one exception among all whom she knew—the one rift in her environment of adulation and love—was Sybella. Evelyn's wand had no power over Sybella; and Sybella was a perpetual irritation to Evelyn. A stronger contrast could hardly have been found than between this aunt and niece. While Evelyn had not suffered hardening, she had been in a manner both braced and repressed by long years of school-life, with absence of home associations. Her training had been the precise reverse of Sybella's. She had developed under it rapidly; and few could believe her to be still not eighteen. Sybella might have belonged to two generations earlier. Evelyn was a thoroughly modern girl; cool, self-possessed, independent, at her ease, afraid neither to speak nor to act, yet always entirely ladylike. Sybella was alarmed at her own shadow, frightened as to proprieties, seldom sure what she wished, rarely certain of her next step, and direfully in need of props.