So she chattered on with the not unpleasing garrulity of gentle, kindly old age. She was a very sweet old lady, and Roma considered herself much more fortunate than her sister-in-law, who had been seized upon by Mrs Christian Montmorris to have poured into her sympathising ear an account of how dreadfully ill her youngest but one had been the last two days, cutting its eye-teeth. Gertrude smiled and said, "indeed," and tried to look interested; but Roma laughed inwardly at her evident eagerness to change the conversation. Mrs Eyrecourt was not a person in whom the maternal instinct was in all directions fully developed: she loved her handsome little son as much as she could love anything; she honestly meant to do her best by Floss, but on certain points she was by no means an authority. It is, indeed, a question if both Quintin and Floss might not have passed through babyhood guiltless of cutting any teeth at all without her awaking from her happy unconsciousness of their failure in the performance of this important infantine obligation. So poor Gertrude sat there, looking and feeling very much bored and rather indignant with Roma for the mischievous glances of pity she now and then bestowed upon her. At last, however, the door opened to admit the two gentlemen, whose late arrival had prolonged "the stupid quarter-of-an-hour," and with, a sensation of relief Mrs Eyrecourt turned to reply to Mr Christian Montmorris's greeting, feeling that she had had quite enough of his better-half for some time to come. VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE. MUTUAL FRIENDS. "Que serait la vie sans esperance? Qu'ils le disent ceux qui n'ont plus rien a esperer ici bas." _L'Homme de Quarante Ans_. "Alas! alas! Hope is not prophecy." "Sorry to keep you waiting--quite against my habit, I assure you. But trains, you see, are worse than time and tide--they not only wait for no one, they very often make people wait for them," said the lawyer, as he shook bands cordially with his mother's guests. "And how is Master Quintin?" he inquired, turning again to Mrs Eyrecourt. "He got no cold bath this morning, I hope? I heard he was going skating with my youngsters."