Still, it was not everybody--by any means far from it--who would have had the kindly tact to receive me as she did, almost from the very first winning my confidence and setting me at my ease, amidst these new surroundings. It was still quite early in the spring, and I did not feel overwhelmed by the contrast of town life with our almost exceptionally quiet one at home. This I was very glad of, though even in the midst of the season I doubt if my godmother would have allowed any extreme in the way of going out. What she did, she has often said, she liked to enjoy, and her happy nature was ready to do so. She threw herself with hearty interest into the many things which were new to me, though of course not so to her. I scarcely think any girl ever saw all best worth seeing in London under pleasanter auspices than I did. And so the days and weeks passed on, bringing with them no twinge of home-sickness to me. My letters to mother and to Isabel, some of which, now faded and yellowing, have come into my hands again of late years, tell of a very happy passage in my life. The time was already approaching for my return home, at least allusions had begun to be made to its probable date, when I one day received a note in an unfamiliar hand. I glanced at the signature as one sometimes does in such a case, before thoroughly mastering the contents. But at the first moment it only added to my perplexity. "Payne?" I repeated, "Edith Payne? who can she be?" Then the name of the southern resort where we had spent our last winter abroad caught my eye, also the words--"Rupert specially asks to be remembered to you"-- and recalled to me the recollection of the nice boys and their gentle little mother whom we had made friends with. Circumstances had, after all, not tended to keeping up the acquaintanceship hitherto, for the younger brother's joining Moore at school had been delayed till quite recently, though it was to this having now taken place that I owed the kind little letter and invitation which it contained. Mrs Payne wrote, hoping that I would at least spend a day with them, if not two or three days; she would be so interested to hear my home news, and Rupert, the incipient novelist, was more than delighted at the idea of meeting me again. Now, as it happened, and as really _does_ happen in fact as well as in fiction, though people are so fond of saying that coincidences principally exist in story-books, this proposal came just at the right time. When I told my godmother of it, I noticed at first a touch of hesitation in her manner. "Mrs _Payne_?" she said. "Not _old_ friends of yours, are they? I don't remember about them." I explained to her when and where we had met, adding that I believed the father was a lawyer of very good standing. Her face cleared.