She looked, it seemed to Alec, exactly the same as she had done when he last saw her. But he had not time to think of her looks. It was she herself, after these years--and three years are a long period to us all before we are four-and-twenty--standing before him. His heart beat as he took her hand, and though he was able to speak and look as if she were a mere ordinary acquaintance, each knew that it was not so. How far her old power over Alec was broken, Laura did not know; but she saw quite plainly, from a hundred little indications, that he was not indifferent to her. There was very little conversation, and such as there was was chiefly about trifles--the respective merits of Harrogate, Buxton, and Aix-le-Bains, the welfare of Alec’s sister, and so on. Alec could not afterwards remember what they talked about, but he remembered the picture which Laura made, as she sat in a small, low chair at the window, playing with one of her gloves, and looking, Alec thought, more sweet and graceful than any human being had looked since his eyes had last rested upon her. The next time Alec went to ask after his uncle, he found that his cousin, James Semple, had arrived from Glasgow, and was staying in the house. After a short visit to his uncle’s sick-room, he was passing through the hall, when he met Semple and Miss Lindsay. ‘You’ll stay to lunch, Alec, and go with us to the Academy?’ said Semple, when they had shaken hands. Miss Mowbray has had a friend come to see her--she is rather a swell at painting, and that sort of thing, I believe--and we intend going to the Academy as soon as we have finished lunch. Alec thought it was very good-natured of Semple to propose that he should join the party, and he consented at once to stay. In a few minutes Laura and her friend, Miss Sewell, made their appearance; and only Alec’s native sense of propriety prevented his staring at Miss Sewell with all his might. She was very tall, very pale, and very thin, and she was dressed in a rather exaggerated form of the ‘Greek’ costume. A broad scarf of the same material as her dress was carried across her breast, and fastened in some way upon her left shoulder. Her hair was gathered into a great knot at the back of her head; and her sleeves were as tight as sleeves could by any possibility be. When she spoke it was in a languid, deliberate way, suggestive of refinement, and a superior delicacy of organization. Miss Lindsay regarded this young lady with mingled amazement and dislike; and only a strong sense of her duty as hostess kept her from openly expressing her condemnation. The conversation at table was not very brilliant. ‘Are you fond of pictures, Miss Sewell?’ inquired Mr. Semple from the foot of the table. Miss Sewell glanced slowly round at Laura, as if for enlightenment as to the purpose of so absurd a question, before she tranquilly replied: ‘Everyone is, I suppose, Mr. Semple.’