Mrs. Orton Beg was in the habit of coming to Evadne's room every evening when she was at Fraylingay, to chat, or sit silently sociable over the fire with her before saying goodnight. "Do I ever fail you?" she asked, smiling. "No. But I have been afraid of the fatal fascination of that great fat foreign prince. He singled you out for special attention, and I have been jealous." "Well, you need not have been, for he singled me out in order to talk about you. He thinks you are a nice child. You interest him." "Defend me!" said Evadne. "But you mistake me, dear aunt. It was not of him I was jealous, but of you. The fat prince is nothing to me, and you are a very great deal." Mrs. Orton Beg's face brightened at the words, but she continued to look into the fire silently for some seconds after Evadne had spoken, and made no other visible sign of having heard them. "I don't think I ought to encourage you to sit up so late," she said presently. "Lady Adeline has just been asking me who it is that burns the midnight oil up here so regularly." "Lady Adeline must be up very late herself to see it," said Evadne. "I suppose those precious twins disturb her. I wish she would let me take entire charge of them when she is here. It would be a relief, I should think!" "It would be an imposition," said Mrs. Orton Beg. "But you are a brave girl, Evadne. _I_ would not venture." "Oh, they delight me," Evadne answered. "And I know them well enough now to forestall them." "When I told Lady Adeline that these were your rooms," her aunt pursued, "she said something about a lily maid high in her chamber up a tower to the east guarding the sacred shield of Lancelot." "Singularly inappropriate," said Evadne. "For my tower is south and west, thank Heaven." "And there isn't a symptom of Lancelot," her aunt concluded. "Young ladies don't guard sacred shields nowadays," said Evadne. "No," answered her aunt, glancing over her shoulder at the open book on the table. "They have substituted the sacred 'Commonplace Book'--full of thought, I fancy." "You speak regretfully, auntie; but isn't it better to think and be happy, than to die of atrophy for a sentiment?" "I don't think it better to extinguish all sentiment. Life without sentiment would be so bald." "But life with that kind of sentiment doesn't last, it seems, and nobody is benefited by it. It is extreme misery to the girl herself, and she dies young, leaving a legacy of lifelong regret and bitterness to her friends. I should think it small comfort to become the subject for a poem or a picture at such a price. And surely, auntie, sentiments which are silly or dangerous would be better extinguished?" Mrs. Orton Beg smiled at the fire enigmatically. "But the poem or the picture may become a lasting benefit to mankind," she suggested presently. "Humph!" said Evadne. "You doubt it?"