"Why can't you say at once who it is, Henry?" she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. "It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden `somebody' is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don't want to see any one, and I don't think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless." The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple's vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl's face, overmastered her prudence. "It didn't startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple--really it didn't," interposed Eugenia, hastily. "That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple's fault. Anything does it-- even the door opening--since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don't want any one else--I have been _quite_ happy with you and Mr Dalrymple." "But you have misunderstood me, Mary," said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. "I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence's I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?" he ended by inquiring of his two companions. "Objection to Gerald Thurston!" repeated Mrs Dalrymple. "Of course not. I shall be very glad to see him. I only wish you had said at first whom you meant. You don't mind, Eugenia?" "I?" said Eugenia, looking up quickly. "Oh, dear no--I am very glad. I like Gerald Thurston very much. He is very kind and good." "And exceedingly clever, and uncommonly good-looking," added Mr Dalrymple, warmly. "Take him for all in all, I don't know where there is a finer fellow than Thurston." "So my father says," agreed Eugenia. "Indeed I think every one that knows him thinks highly of him." She was anxious to be cordial, and really felt so towards Gerald. Of late she had come to like him much more than formerly, and the extreme consideration and delicacy which he had shown the evening her illness began, had increased this liking by a feeling of gratitude. Nevertheless there had grown up unconsciously in her a somewhat painful association with Gerald since that evening, and she had not seen enough of him to remove it. "He knows," she said to herself, and she shrank from meeting him again.