Edith responded, and then they drew apart from the rest, and began to talk to each other exclusively. There was a bright tinge of colour in her transparent cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and a pleased perpetual smile hovered about her lips. The entrance of Sir Mosley Menteith had changed the unemotional feminine atmosphere. He was an eligible, and his near neighbourhood caused the girl's heart to swell with a sensation like enthusiasm. She felt as if she could be eloquent, but no suitable subject presented itself, and so she said little. She was very glad, however, and she looked so; and naturally she thought no more for the moment of the poor little French girl--who was just then awaking to a sense of pain, mental and physical, to horror of the past, and fear for the future, and the heavy sense of an existence marred, not by reason of her own weakness so much as by the possession of one of the most beautiful qualities in human nature--the power to love and trust. "Is the old swing still on the elm?" said Sir Mosley. "Yes," Edith answered. "Not exactly the same rope, you know; but we keep a swing there always." "Who uses it now?" "Children who come to see us," she said. "And sometimes I sit in it myself!" she added laughing. "I should very much like to see it again," he said. "Come and see it then," she answered, rising as she spoke. "Mosley wants to see the old swing," she said to her mother as they left the room together. "What a nice looking young man," Mrs. Frayling observed. "His head is too small," Lady Adeline said. "Has he anything in him?" "Oh--yes. Well, good average abilities, I should say," Mrs. Beale rejoined, "Too much ability, you know, is rather dangerous. Men with many ideas so often get into mischief." "That is true," said Mrs. Frayling; "and it is worse with women. When _they_ have ideas, as my husband was saying only this morning, they become quite outrageous--_new_ ideas, of course I mean, you know." "He seems to admire Edith very much," Mrs. Orton Beg observed. Mrs. Beale smiled complacently. Edith sat long in her room that night on the seat of the window that faced the east. She had taken off her evening dress and put on her white flannel wrapper. The soft material draped itself to her figure, and fell in heavy folds to her feet. Her beautiful hair, which was arranged for the night in one great plait with the ends loose, hung down to the ground beside her. The moon was high in the heavens, but not visible from where she sat. Its light, however, flooded the open spaces of the garden beneath her, and cast great shadows of the trees across the lawn. The sombre afternoon had cleared to a frosty night, and the deep indigo sky was sparsely sprinkled with brilliant stars. Edith looked out. She saw the stars, and the earth with its heavy shadows, and the wavering outlines of the trees and shrubs, and felt a kinship with them.