"Little peacock! You should have heard what everybody was saying of you when you went out of the dining-room to-night! These absurd ears must have been quite hot! How stunning you looked in the diamonds! I am glad I made you wear them.... It is a curious thing that, since I first saw you, you have altered completely. I used to think you were like your mother, and now----" She broke in eagerly. "So have you! How odd! You are quite, quite different from what you used to be. Ever so much nicer!" "You won't leave off loving me because I am no longer morose and miserable?" "No, for I am vain enough to believe that, if I ceased to love you, you might again become morose and miserable." "What have you done to me, Virgie?" he whispered vehemently. "Turned the Beast into a Prince, that's all," she laughed, her cheek close-pressed to his. * * * * * Mrs. Mynors was hopelessly bored. Worthing without Gerald or Virgie was simply too dull a hole. It needed but the news of Gerald's accident to make her feel that her sojourn by the southern shore was unendurable. Here was Virgie, her beloved child, who had travelled in a totally unfit state of health for a journey, and must now be very ill, since no word had come from her for three days! And here was Gerald, laid up close by, at the Ferrises, longing for some one to cheer him and talk to him in a congenial fashion. If she travelled to Derbyshire she could gratify her maternal anxiety and her wish to see poor dear Gerald, both at the same time. It struck her as the best plan not to announce her forthcoming arrival. Gaunt was an unspeakable brute, a thorough boor, and would refuse to receive her if she gave him half a chance. But if she arrived _à l'improviste_, with the plea of irresistible maternal solicitude, he could not have his door shut in her face. Besides, such a move would put an end, once and for all, to his intolerable attitude towards herself. Virgie, by flying in the face of her mother's wishes and going back to him, had, of course, settled her own fate. She had insisted upon returning, and now she must stay. It would be a pretty state of affairs indeed if it should get about that Gaunt declined to receive his mother-in-law. Seeing that for her to exist upon the pittance provided was out of the question, she must spend about three months in every year at Omberleigh; and this was most evidently the moment to make a definite coup and show Osbert that she meant to stand no nonsense. To have her in the house would give her poor child courage to stand up to the tyrant. She would soon mend his manners for him, if she once found herself established under his roof.