"Yes," said Stella, again. "It is very pretty, is it not?" "It is, as pretty as anything in one of your uncle's pictures. And are you quite happy?" Stella brought her eyes upon the pale, wrinkled face. "Happy! Oh, yes, quite," she said. "Yes, I think you are," said the old lady with a keen glance at the beautiful face and bright, pure eyes. "Then you must keep so, my dear," she said. "But isn't that rather difficult?" said Stella, with a smile. Lady Longford looked at her. "That serves me right for meddling," she said. "Yes, it is difficult, very difficult, and yet the art is easy enough; it contains only one rule, and that is 'to be content.'" "Then I shall continue to be happy," said Stella; "for I am very content." "For the present," said the old lady. "Take care, my dear!" Stella smiled; it was a strange sort of conversation, and there was a suggestion of something that did not appear on the surface. "Do you think that I look very discontented, then?" she asked. "No," said the old lady, eying her again. "No, you look very contented--at present. Isn't that a beautiful forest?" It was an abrupt change of the subject, but Stella was equal to it. "I have been admiring it since I came in," she said; "it is like fairy land." "Go and enter it," said the old countess--"I am going to sleep for exactly ten minutes. Will you come back to me then? You see, I am very frank and rude; but I am very old indeed." Stella rose with a smile. "I think you are very kind to me," she said. The old countess looked up at the beautiful face with the dark, soft eyes bent down on her; and something like a sigh of regret came into her old, keen eyes. "You know how to make pretty speeches, my dear," she said. "You learnt that in Italy, I expect. Mind you come back to me." Then, as Stella moved away, the old lady looked after her. "Poor child!" she murmured--"poor child! she is but a child; but he won't care. Is it too late, I wonder? But why should I worry about it?" But it seemed as if she must worry about it, whatever it was, for after a few minutes' effort to sleep, she rose and went across to the tea-table. Lady Wyndward was making tea, but looked up and pushed a chair close beside her. "What is it?" she asked, with a smile. "Who is she?" asked the countess, taking a cup and stirring the tea round and round, very much as Betty the washerwoman does--very much indeed. Lady Wyndward did not ask "Who?" but replied in her serene, placid voice directly: "I don't know. Of course, I know that she is Mr. Etheridge's niece, but I don't know anything about her, except that she has just come here from Italy. She said that she was not happy there." "She is very beautiful," murmured the countess. "She is--very," assented Lady Wyndward. "And something more than distinguished. I never saw a more graceful girl. She is only a child, of course." "Quite a child," assented Lady Wyndward again.