To such discourse as this Cecil had to listen during the rainy morning which succeeded Mr. O'Boyneville's departure. The feminine assembly in the pretty old-fashioned painted drawing-room enlivened the labours of _décalcomanie_ and Berlin wool-work with their praises of the departed barrister. The matrons were as enthusiastic as their daughters. Of all partners at whist there was no one they had ever met so invincible as Mr. O'Boyneville, although he had declared that he had not handled a card since his boyhood; and then he was so unlike the young men who call a middle-aged lady "a venerable party," and a sober married man a "dozy old bird." And then--and then--and then--there seemed no end to the feminine laudation of Laurence O'Boyneville. Only two ladies in that assembly were silent, and those two were Cecil Chudleigh and Mrs. MacClaverhouse. But an occasional impatient sniff from the dowager gave evidence of her state of mind. He was gone, and every one was loud in his praise. He was gone; and though Cecil Chudleigh had only been accustomed to his presence within the last six or seven days, the place seemed to her just a little dull and empty without him, and she was fain to confess to herself that she as well as the others missed the sound of his sonorous voice, the gaiety of his boisterous laugh. And from thinking of the departed Queen's Counsel, she went on, by some indefinable train of thought, to pondering upon the dull blank life of spinsterhood and poverty that lay before her; to muse a little sadly upon the text of all her aunt's sermons--her lonely helplessness, her penniless dependence. The present was well enough so long as it lasted. She was happy, or at any rate, content, even though the dowager's temper grew sharper, and the dowager's tongue more bitter, every day. She was resigned to the prospect of alternating between Dorset Square and watering-places and other people's houses for the rest of her life. But there were times when her pride revolted against the whole scheme of her existence, and a vision of the future arose before her, blank and terrible. She was such an unnecessary creature, such a mere waif and stray, to be drifted hither and thither on every tide which carried her kinswoman; a lady's-maid without a lady's-maid's wages; a slave without a slave's apathy. "Perhaps my aunt is right after all," she thought, bitterly, "and I have been foolish to throw away any chance that would have given me release from such an existence."