Five o'clock has struck some time ago. Evening is coming on apace. On the dry, smooth-shaven lawn, outside, the shadows are lengthening, stretching themselves indolently as though weary from all the hide-and-seek they have been playing, since early dawn, in the nooks and corners of the quaint old garden. June has not yet quite departed; its soft, fresh glory still gilds the edge of the lake, and lends a deeper splendor to the golden firs that down below are nodding to the evening breeze; it is the happiest time of all the year, for "What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth, if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays." "Well, the mother is dead and gone now, this many a year," says Sir Mark, "and the old fellow went nearly out of his mind when Julia married Beaufort." "Oh! she is married?" says Portia. "Dear Portia, didn't I _tell_ you she had children?" says Dulce, reproachfully. "She married an Indian Nabob with an aristocratic name and a _lac_ of rupees, as she believed, but there was a flaw somewhere, and--er--how was it Dicky?" "Simplest thing out," says Dicky. "He had a lack of rupees, indeed, as she found out when he died. It is only the difference of one letter after all, and that can't count for much." "Her father, old Charley, left her everything, so she isn't badly off now," says Sir Mark, "but the Nabob was a sell." "I wonder if Portia will like her," says Dulce, meditatively, laying her elbows on the table and letting her chin sink into her palms. "Tell me something about her personally," entreats Portia, turning to her with some show of interest. "What can I tell you? She is pretty in her own way, and she agrees with everyone, and she never means a word she says; and, when she appears most earnest, that is the time not to believe in her; and she is very agreeable as a rule, and she is Fabian's pet aversion." ("Not now," says Portia to herself). "I don't think there is anything else I can tell you," continues Dulce, with a little nod. "I wonder you have her," says Miss Vibart, disagreeably impressed by this description. "Why, she is our cousin! And, of course, she can come whenever she wishes--she knows that," says Dulce. "It is not with her, as with you, you know. You are a joy, she is a duty. But the children _are_ so sweet." "How many of them?" asks Portia, who knows a few things she prefers to children. "Three. Pussy, Jacky, and the Boodie. The Boodie is nothing short of perfection." "That is the one solitary point on which Dulce and I agree," says Roger. "We both adore the Boodie. Wait till you see her; she is all gold hair, and blue eyes, and creamy skin, and her nose is a fortune in itself. I can't think where Julia found her." "Fabian is so fond of her," says Dulce, whose thoughts never wander very far from the brother for whose ruined life she grieves incessantly, day after day.