“Well, you see--you'll forgive me, I know--it's _tone_ you want just now. She'll give you that. She's something to pull against. You get your back up against her, and hang on. That's the ticket. She's a good soul, is Aunt Maria--lots of tone--gives parties to all and sundry. You meet some rare fish in those waters--Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics. They'll amuse you--give you bones to pick. I don't get on with 'em myself--too simple, I am, you know. They talk their politics, or domestic afflictions, and I feel so delicate I don't know what to do. There was one chap I remember--Golowicz his name was--big, red-whiskered, conspiracy chap ... told me all about his mother--tears running down his cheeks. I didn't know her from Adam, you know, but still--Oh, you'll like Aunt Wenman. She'll want you to live with her, and you might do much worse.” Sanchia listened, smiled, and pondered. It was not her way to be disposed of so simply. What was impressive to her about this conversation was the real reticence underlying the chatter of her friend. She could feel his conviction of her want of tone; she was convinced of it herself. Her purpose in life seemed gone. Once it had been love, next it had been the ordering of affairs. The second had been so absorbing that she had not missed the first; indeed, she had believed it there until the very end, when she had called it up, and had no answer. But now--what aim had she, in this lonely, empty life she was leading, whose hours were so many that she had to fill them up with Italian got out of books? Without knowing it, it was life she wanted, not books. She with her brains, vitality, beauty, and charm had been growing in these graces unawares, flowering in secret at Wanless under her aprons, behind her account-books and garden gloves. Now that all these swaddling bands were stripped off her, behold her, armed at all points for the lists. So Chevenix had beheld her, it seems. Let her see the world, approve her mettle, run her career. Chevenix, watching her, judged in those pondering eyes, in that half-smile which had charmed him before, a kind of quivering expectancy new to her. He judged her tempted, and renewed his suggestions on a later day. “What you want,” he then told her, “is to try a fall or two with the world. You've been too snug, you know--too long under glass. You left the school-room to go to Wanless--and where were you there? Under cover. You want the sun, the wind, and the rain; you want to know what these things feel like--and how the rest of us take 'em. And you want to be seen, if you let me say that. We all like being looked at, I believe. I know that I do, when I'm quite sure about my hat. Now you won't get much of that in a Warwick Street two-pair front, let me tell you--no, nor in your B 17, or whatever your seat is, at the Museum. You're a star--you're to shine. Well, give 'em a turn in Charles Street. I'll fix it up for you. I wish you'd think it over.”