She was very good to Lydia all through dinner, and made her talk of the simple life at home, and the village characters whom she remembered from her last summer's visit. That amused Mr. Erwin, who several times, when, his wife was turning the talk upon Lydia's voyage over, intervened with some new question about the life of the queer little Yankee hill-town. He said she must tell Lady Fenleigh about it,--she was fond of picking up those curios; it would make any one's social fortune who could explain such a place intelligibly in London; when they got to having typical villages of the different civilizations at the international expositions,--as no doubt they would,--somebody must really send South Bradfield over. He pleased himself vastly with this fancy, till Mrs. Erwin, who had been eying Lydia critically from time to time, as if making note of her features and complexion, said she had a white cloak, and that in Venice, where one need not dress a great deal for the opera, Lydia could wear it that night. Lydia looked up in astonishment, but she sat passive during her aunt's discussion of her plans. When they rose from table, she said, at her stiffest and coldest, “Aunt Josephine, I want you to excuse me from going with you to-night. I don't feel like going.” “Not feel like going!” exclaimed her aunt in dismay. “Why, your uncle has taken a box!” Lydia opposed nothing to this argument. She only said, “I would rather not go.” “Oh, but you _will_, dear,” coaxed her aunt. “You would enjoy it so much.” “I thought you understood from what I said to-day,” replied Lydia, “that I could not go.” “Why, no, I didn't! I knew you objected; but if I thought it was proper for you to go--” “I should not go at home,” said Lydia, in the same immovable fashion. “Of course not. Every place has its customs, and in Venice it has _always_ been the custom to go to the opera on Sunday night.” This fact had no visible weight with Lydia, and after a pause her aunt added, “Didn't Paul himself say to do in Rome as the Romans do?” “No, aunt Josephine,” cried Lydia, indignantly, “he did _not_!” Mrs. Erwin turned to her husband with a face of appeal, and he answered, “Really, my dear, I think you're mistaken. I always had the impression that the saying was--an Americanism of some sort.” “But it doesn't matter,” interposed Lydia decisively. “I couldn't go, if I didn't think it was right, whoever said it.” “Oh, well,” began Mrs. Erwin, “if you wouldn't mind what _Paul_ said--” She suddenly checked herself, and after a little silence she resumed, kindly, “I won't try to force you, Lydia. I didn't realize what a very short time it is since you left home, and how you still have all those ideas. I wouldn't distress you about them for the world, my dear. I want you to feel at home with me, and I'll make it as like home for you as I can in everything. Henshaw, I think you must go alone, this evening. I will stay with Lydia.”