"Not my little star? It would look very well, my darling, to fix your veil on. The diamonds are very good, though perhaps a little old-fashioned; you might get them reset. But--your father gave it me like that." "I would not change it a bit, mamma, for anything in the world." "Thanks, my dearest. I thought that was how you would feel about it. It is not very big, of course, but it really is very good." "Then I will wear it, mamma, if it will please you, but nothing else." "It would please me: it would be like having something from your father. I think we had less idea of ornaments in my day. I cannot tell you how proud I was of my diamond star. I should like to put it in for you myself, Elinor." "Oh, mamma!" This was the nearest point they had come to that outburst of two full hearts which both of them would have called breaking down. Mrs. Dennistoun saw it and was frightened. She thought it would be betraying to Elinor what she wished her never to know, the unspeakable desolation to which she was looking forward when her child was taken from her. Elinor's exclamation, too, was a protest against the imminent breaking down. They both came back with a hurry, with a panting breath, to safer ground. "Yes, that's what I regret," she said. "Mr. Bolsover and Harry Compton will laugh a little at the Rectory. They will not be so--nice as young men of their own kind." "The Rectory people are just as well born as any of us, Elinor." "Oh, precisely, mamma: I know that; but we too---- It is what they call a different _monde_. I don't think it is half so nice a _monde_," said the girl, feeling that she had gone further than she intended to do; "but you know, mamma----" "I know, Elinor: but I scarcely expected from you----" "Oh," cried Elinor again, in exasperation, "if you think that I share that feeling! I think it odious, I think their _monde_ is vulgar, nasty, miserable! I think----" "Don't go too far the other way, Elinor. Your husband will be of it, and you must learn to like it. You think, perhaps, all that is new to me?" "No," said Elinor, her bright eyes, all the brighter for tears, falling before her mother's look. "I know, of course, that you have seen--all kinds----" But she faltered a little, for she did not believe that her mother was acquainted with Phil's circle and their wonderful ways. "They will be civil enough," she went on, hurriedly, "and as everybody chaffs so much nowadays they will, perhaps, never be found out. But I don't like it for my friends." "They will chaff me also, no doubt," Mrs. Dennistoun said. "Oh, _you_, mamma! they are not such fools as that," cried poor Elinor; but in her own mind she did not feel confident that there was any such limitation to their folly. Mrs. Dennistoun laughed a little to herself, which was, perhaps, more alarming than that other moment when she was almost ready to cry.