Ida reddened, and then grew very pale. 'I see,' she said, 'you think I deprive you of your cousin's society. I will ask Miss Wendover to let me go back to France.' 'No, no, no, you inhuman creature! how can you talk like that? You know that I love you ever so much better than Brian, though he is my own kith and kin. I would not lose you for worlds. I don't care a straw about his coming, for my own sake. Only I should so like you to marry him, and be one of us. Oh, here's that odious Dr. Rylance stealing after you. Aunt Betsy is quite right--the man would like to marry you--but you won't accept him, will you, darling?--not even to have your own house in Cavendish Square, a victoria and brougham, and all those blessings we hear so much about from Urania. Remember, you would have her for a stepdaughter into the bargain.' 'Be assured, dear Bess, I shall never be Urania's stepmother. And now, darling, put all thoughts of matrimony out of your head; for me, at least.' That brief flash of Christmas and New Year's gaiety was soon over. The Knoll resumed its wonted domestic calm. Dr. Rylance went back to Cavendish Square, and only emerged occasionally from the London vortex to spend a peaceful day or two at Kingthorpe. His daughter was not installed as mistress of his town house, as she had fondly hoped would be the case. She was permitted to spend an occasional week, sometimes stretched to ten days or a fortnight, in Cavendish Square; but the cook-housekeeper and the clever German servant, half valet half butler, still reigned supreme in that well-ordered establishment; and Urania felt that she had no more authority than a visitor. She dared not find fault with servants who had lived ten years in her father's service, and who suited him perfectly--even had there been any legitimate reason for fault-finding, which there was not. Dr. Rylance having got on so comfortably during the last twelve years of his life without a mistress for his town house, was disinclined to surrender his freedom to a daughter who had more than once ventured to question his actions, to hint that he was not all-wise. He considered it a duty to introduce his daughter into the pleasant circles where he was petted and made much of; and he fondly hoped she would speedily find a husband sufficiently eligible to be allowed the privilege of taking her off her father's hands. But in the meanwhile, Urania in London was somewhat of a bore; and Dr. Rylance was never more cheerful than when driving her to Waterloo Station. Miss Rylance's life, therefore, during this period alternated between rural seclusion and London gaiety. She came back to the pastoral phase of her existence with the feelings and demeanour of a martyr; and her only consolation was found in those calm airs of superiority which seemed justified by her intimate acquaintance with society, and her free use of a kind of jargon which she called modern thought.