"They will soon make up for lost time in that direction. Miss Eugenia, at least, seems to take very kindly to a little amusement when she gets a chance. Quite right too--don't you think so, Chancellor? She is very pretty, isn't she?" said good Mr Dalrymple. Beauchamp felt uncertain if his host had any covert meaning in these questions. He felt a little annoyed, and inclined to ignore them; but a very slight smile, which crept over Roma's face, changed his intention. "Pretty?" he repeated. "Yes, indeed she is; and her dancing is perfection." The Dalrymples looked pleased; and when Roma soon after got up, saying she felt sleepy, and it must be getting late, Captain Chancellor hoped his last observation had to do with her sudden discovery of fatigue. He saw her off next morning, as Mrs Dalrymple had proposed. They parted very amicably, for Miss Eyrecourt did not recur to the subject of her warning. The fog had cleared away, and Captain Chancellor felt in very good spirits. Ugly as Wareborough was, he began to think he could manage to exist there pretty comfortably for a few months. "I must get Dalrymple to introduce me more definitely to the Laurences," he said to himself. "Mr Laurence's philanthropical tastes are not much in my way, certainly; but I like a well-educated man. And his daughter isn't the sort of girl one comes across every day--I saw that in an instant. Ah, yes, my dear Roma; I shall do very well, though your anxiety is most gratifying. Nor will it do you any harm to expend a little more of it upon me. I wonder if Mrs Dalrymple writes gossiping letters about what doesn't concern her, like most women? As things look now, I rather hope she does." VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE. SISTERS. All hearts in all places under the blessed light of day say it, each in its own language--why not in mine?--Hayward's _Translation of Faust_. The short winter's day was already nearly over; though the fog had cleared off, and frost was evidently on the way, it was still dull and dreary. Eugenia Laurence sat on the rug as close to the fire as she could get, feeling unusually out of spirits. She could not tell what was the matter with her, she only felt that it was difficult to believe herself in the same world as that on which she had closed her eyes last night. She had fallen asleep in a bewildering haze of delicious excitement, with vague anticipations of a somehow equally delightful to-morrow; it seemed to her, that never before had she realised the full value of her life and youth, and timidly acknowledged beauty; her dreams had been filled with a new presence--a presence to which, even to herself, she shrank from giving a name; everything about her--past, present and future--seemed bathed in light and colour.