Rose’s astonishment kept her silent. Cecily, who knew nothing of country things! Cecily, who, in spite of her love for nature, belonged first to the town--to its life, its thoughts, its opportunities! To this meeting with the friend of her girlhood she had been looking forward for months, and she had met a stranger. She had foolishly expected to take up the thread of intimacy where she had dropped it, and in the interval a whole new pattern had been woven,--a pattern in faded colors, whose design she did not understand. Cecily was obviously unhappy; obviously, also, she was keeping her at arm’s length, and with such success that she had not the courage to ask direct questions. With gratitude she hailed the appearance of a maid who came with tea, as a relief to her embarrassment--that terrible embarrassment one feels in the presence of a close friend to whose mind one has lost the key. While the cloth was being spread, and the maid was moving to and fro from the house, they exchanged information on family matters. “Diana is almost grown up,” said Cecily, speaking of her sister, whom Mrs. Summers remembered as a child of twelve. “You know she’s been living with Uncle Henry and Aunt Mary since father died?” The softening of her voice, the hesitation with which she spoke his name, reminded Rose of one great grief, at least, through which in her absence her friend had passed. “You will like Diana,” Cecily added after a moment. “Of course you’re going to stay to-night, Rose?” Mrs. Summers admitted that she was open to an invitation. “When is Robert coming back?” she inquired. “This afternoon, I think. He was staying last night at his godmother’s--Lady Wilmot, you know.” The mention of her husband’s name did not, as Rose hoped, lead to confidences. Cecily began at once to inquire the earliest date at which her friend could leave the children long enough for a “proper visit,” and Mrs. Summers was soon driven to make conversation. “What a ridiculous little world it is!” she remarked, stirring her tea; “I haven’t yet been home a week, and already I’ve run across people I’d lost sight of for years before I left England. Now, on Monday, for instance, I was going to the dressmaker’s when I met a girl I used to know, a girl called Philippa Burton.” “_Philippa Burton!_” echoed Cecily, with interest. “Why, I went to school with her. A rather pretty dark girl?” “Major Burton’s daughter? Yes? How strange!” “Philippa Burton! How it brings all the schooldays back!” exclaimed Cecily, with a retrospective laugh. “I had no idea you knew her, Rose. When did you meet her?” “That year I went to Leipzig to study music, you know. She was in the same _pension_, studying something or other also; I forget what. Affectation, I should think.”