She spoke playfully, but there was a sharpness in her raillery which Mrs Eyrecourt did not love. She could not endure being laughed at, and she felt annoyed with Roma for making fun of any of _her_ friends, be they never so funny, all of which Roma knew, and had dealt out her words accordingly, for she had not been half an hour at home before she knew exactly how the wind blew as regarded the young wife, and she was on the alert to show Gertrude she need not look to her for sympathy in her prejudice. But to Eugenia it was actual pain to witness the annoyance or discomfiture of another. A sort of instinct made her try to change the conversation. "Did you say that the Swiss nun had never in her life been anywhere?" she asked Roma. "Why had she been always in a convent? I never knew children could be sent to convents except as pupils." "This girl was an orphan, and she had some money, and she had come to look on the convent as her home," said Roma; "she wasn't quite a lady; her father had been a rich farmer. I daresay she was happy enough, but it made a great impression on me as a child. It seemed so dreadful to be shut in between those four high walls when the world outside was so beautiful. I shouldn't have pitied her half so much if the convent had been in an ugly place." "I don't know," said Eugenia, with a dreamy look in her eyes; "I think it would be something to have the sky and mountains to look out at if one were miserable." The expression of her face struck Roma with a slight pain. It was not thus she had looked on her wedding-day, even when blinded with the tears of her farewell. Through those tears Roma had been able to pronounce her "perfectly happy." "Is it Gertrude's fault, I wonder," thought Roma, with quick indignation, "or can she be stirring already in her slumber? And only six weeks married." But it was not Roma's way to dwell on unpleasant suggestions. The meeting troubles half-way was an amusement which had never much recommended itself to her. So she answered brightly-- "Miserable, why should we think about being miserable? But all this time you are forgetting my travelling companion. As you won't guess who he was, I suppose I must tell you. It was Mr Thurston, your brother-in-law's brother, Eugenia. The stranger, the new arrival from India, Gertrude, that we met at dinner at the Mountmorrises'." "I was just thinking it must be he. He goes up and down that line so much. Did not you like him very much, Miss Eyrecourt? I do exceedingly. And he is so clever and thorough. The only thing not nice about him is, he is a little--funny--I don't know what to call it." "Funny? Do you mean humorous?" said Roma, looking at her with some amusement. "It did not strike me particularly."