“She feels nothing but envy and malice and all uncharitableness,” cried the old lord. “Never mind, my love. We’ll do our best for the children all the same; but you won’t let a woman like that interfere with your happiness, Mary?” “N--no,” said Mary doubtfully. She grew very white, and then very red, and cried, “Oh, let her come at once, let me get it over,” with something that was very like a cry of despair. But there was no offence in Letitia’s looks when she made her appearance. She explained again that she had brought a bag in case they would have her for the night, but otherwise that she could very well return to Greenpark the same night, for she would not for all the world upset dear Mary. Her eyes went round the room taking in everything at a glance. Oh, so like the Hills, she said to herself. Just what she would have expected of them. The big chair which was exactly Mrs. Hill, as if it had been made in imitation of her, and all the little trumpery ornaments and things, little pots of flowers and so forth. But Letitia took the chair which was like Mrs. Hill, feeling a momentary satisfaction in disturbing the habit which no doubt the vicar’s wife had already formed of sitting there, and beamed upon the little party as if she was as happy in her friend’s prospects as any of the family could be. It was not until the evening that she showed the cloud that was hid under all this velvet. She had been so _nice_, so exactly what a sympathetic sister-in-law should be, that Mary’s mother and sister had not hesitated to leave her alone with their interesting invalid. Lord Frogmore had gone out for one of his frequent walks. The twilight was falling upon the long warm August day. It had begun to get a little dim in the room, though Mary through the open window was still watching the last evening glories in the western sky. Mary, too, had lost her fear of Letitia. It was so much more natural to think well of any one; to believe at bottom an old friend must always be kind. And what would be more natural between two old friends than to go back at such an hour upon the past, especially the past which had linked them so much more closely together. “When one thinks,” said Letitia with a laugh, “how strangely things come about. Do you remember, Mary, how we met in the picture-gallery? It was the Grosvenor Gallery, wasn’t it? But no; they had not begun there. It must have been in the academy, I suppose. It was just a chance, as people say, that took you and I there at the same time. You were with those old-fashioned aunts of yours. And you were very old-fashioned yourself, my dear, if I may say so now. Very neat you know--you always were neat--but your things looking as if they had all been made at home, and made a good while ago, and as well taken care of. Oh, I think I can see you now, and to think from that chance meeting how much has come!”