Pevenshall was besieged by callers during that particular week--people who had been so delighted, and so charmed, and so surprised by the amateur comedy, and who were eager to testify their gratification and their delight to the mistress of the mansion. Amongst these callers were the officers of the Plungers, and amongst the officers came Major Gordon. He came one bright frosty morning, when a bevy of ladies, headed by Miss Evershed, had sailed off to the billiard-room, and when the group in the drawing-room was a very small one. The sentimental widow sat by the fire reading a new French novel--the philosophy of which she took the trouble to expound now and then for the benefit of her companions; an elderly dowager dozed over the morning paper; Mrs. Lobyer sat at a little table by one of the windows, trifling with her brushes, before a half-finished water-colour sketch of a group of camellia japonicas that had been brought from the conservatory for the gratification of a sudden artistic impulse on the part of the mistress of Pevenshall; and Cecil bent over an elaborately embroidered slipper which she was preparing for the great O'Boyneville. "I think it would be rather nice if I could only get a bird's-nest," said Flo, after a lengthened contemplation of her sketch; "'Camellia Japonicas and a Bird's Nest--Mrs. Lobyer.' That would look very well in a catalogue, wouldn't it? But I suppose bird's-nests are out of season in January. People talk about money being able to buy any thing, and yet I dare say my picture will be a failure for want of a bird's-nest. Camellia japonicas by themselves are so uninteresting; and I did so want to astonish papa by sending something to the British Institution, just to show him that I hadn't neglected my painting. What do you think of a cut lemon, Cecil? one of those big clumsy lemons one sees in old pictures, with the rind trailing from it. Or what would you say to a silver salver, or one of Mr. Lobyer's great chased tankards, or a Sèvres vase? I positively must have something to relieve the insipidity of my camellia japonicas." While Mrs. Lobyer was debating this important subject, Major Gordon was announced. Cecil and Florence were seated very near each other; and after shaking hands with both ladies, the soldier took the chair nearest his hostess. Then for the first time Cecil felt the extreme embarrassment of her position. The man who had once loved her approached her as a stranger, and yet, in spite of her prayers--in spite of her struggles to hold firmly to the right, the vision of the past came back to her; and she thought of him, not as she saw him now, courteously indifferent, conventionally polite--but as she had seen him on that last day at Fortinbras, with his head bent, and his eyes dim with tears.