“Oh,” cried Rosamond, breaking in, “if you think there’s any softening of the brain or that sort of thing, you are very very much mistaken. If you only knew how clever he is! I have heard him take in people--people, you know, like my uncle the bishop, and that sort of person, with an account of pious feelings, and how he knows it is all for his good, and so forth. You would think he was a saint to hear him--and the poor bishop looking so bothered, knowing too much to _quite_ believe it, and yet not daring to contradict him. It was as good as a play. I shrieked with laughter when he was gone, and so did father. It was the funniest thing I ever saw.” “My dear!” cried Evelyn again, wringing her hands in protestation; but what could she say? If she had been disposed to take in hand the reformation of Edward Saumarez’s daughter, it could not be by adding to her unerring clear sight and criticism of him. “Do you see much,” she said, in a kind of desperation, “of the bishop?” with a clutch at the moral skirts of some one who might be able to help. “Oh no, only when he comes to town. They don’t ask us now to the Palace, for I am sure he never can make up his mind about father, whether he is a real saint or--the other thing. Aunt Rose is the relation you know, not the bishop. It is by mother’s side, so they naturally disapprove of papa.” Evelyn did not at all know how to deal with this girl, who was so cognisant of the world and all its ways. Rosamond was even more a woman of the world than Madeline Leighton. She believed in less, and she seemed to know more, and her calm girlish voice, and the pearly tints of her infantine radiance of countenance produced upon the middle-aged listener a sensation of utter confusion impossible to describe. She asked hurriedly, with an endeavour to divert the easy stream of words to another subject, “Have you any friends of your own age, my dear, to amuse yourself with?” “Oh plenty,” said Rosamond, “quantities! There are such crowds of girls; wherever one goes, nothing but women, women, till one is sick of them. I have a very great friend whom I see constantly, and who is exactly of my way of thinking. As soon as we are old enough we both mean to take up a profession. I have not quite decided upon mine, but she means to be a doctor. She is studying a little now, whenever she can get a moment, and looking forward to the time when she shall be old enough to put down her foot. Of course they will try to forbid it, and that sort of thing. But she has quite made up her mind. As for me, I have not such a clear leading as Madeline. I am still quite in doubt.” “Madeline,” said Evelyn. “I wonder if by chance that is Madeline Leighton whom I saw the other day?”