"Yes," reply I, "_I_ was. I told you what Roger said, word for word--all of you!" "_Did_ you?"--(with an accent of astonished incredulity). "Yes," say I, "do not you remember? I promised I would before I went into the drawing-room that day, and, when I came out, I wanted the boys to let me off, but they would not." A pause. "I wish," say I, a little impatiently, "that you would look up! Why need you mind if you _are_ rather red? What do _I_ matter? and so--and so--you are _pleased_!" "_Pleased!_" She has raised her head as I bid her, and on her face there is a sort of scorn at the poverty and inadequacy of the expression, and yet she replaces it with no other; only the sapphire of her eyes is dimmed and made more tender by rising tears. Clearly we were never meant to be joyful, we humans! In any bliss greater than our wont, we can only hang out, to demonstrate our felicity, the sign and standard of woe. "Nancy!"--(taking my hand, and looking at me with wistful earnestness)--"do you think it _can_ last? Did ever any one feel as I do for _long_?" "I do not know--how can I tell?" reply I, discomfortably, as I absently eye the two halves of my paper-knife, which, after having given one or two warning cracks, has now snapped in the middle. Then Roger enters, and our talk ends. CHAPTER XLII. "God made a foolish woman, making me!" "Have you any idea whom we shall meet?" It is Barbara who asks this one morning at breakfast. The question refers to a three days' visit that it has become our fate to pay to a house in the neighborhood--a house not eight miles distant from Tempest, and over which we are grumbling in the minute and exhaustive manner which people mostly employ when there is a question of making merry with their friends. I shake my head. "I have not an idea, that is to say, except Mrs. Huntley, and she goes without saying!" "Why?" "We are known to be such inseparables, that she is always asked to meet us," reply I, with that wintry smile, which is my last accomplishment. "We pursue her round the country, do not we, Roger?" Barbara opens her great eyes, but, with her usual tact, she says nothing. She sees that she has fallen on stony ground. "She is _the oldest friend that we have in the world_!" continue I, laughing pleasantly. Roger does not answer, he does not even look up, but by a restless movement that he makes in his chair, by a tiny contraction of the brows, I see that my shot has told. I am becoming an adept in the infliction of these pin-pricks. It is one of the few pleasures I have left.