“Oh! that’s aunty,” said the girl. She looked at the elderly visitor with a slight air of contempt, as if a man who could prefer to see aunty instead of herself was a most curious specimen of humanity. And then she laid down upon the table a parasol she had been carrying, and her gloves, and a small basket of flowers. “I’ve just been out to the nursery garden to get a flower,” she said, “I’m awfully fond of flowers. D’ye like them?--Will I give you one for your buttonhole--if you’re one of aunty’s friends?” “You are very kind,” said the tremulous father, “but had you not better wait till you see if aunty recognises me for one of her friends?” “Oh, it’s no matter,” said the girl, “a flower is neither here nor there--and she’ll not be fit to see a gentleman for a good while. She likes to put on her best gown, and her cap with the red ribbons, like the lady in the ‘Laird of Cockpen’--D’ye know the song?” “I used to know it long ago--before I went to India----” “Oh, you’ve come from Ingia? Papa’s out there--I wonder if you’ve come from papa. Archie and me, we are always wishing he would send for us. It would be awful fun. But he says he’s coming home. I hope he’ll not come home. I hope he’ll send for us out there. Isn’t it far better fun out in Ingia than it is here?” “I don’t know about the fun here. Do you remember your father?” he asked. “No,” said the young lady indifferently, “I was a little baby when he went away; and he must think I’m a little baby still, for he never sends me things that you might think he would. I’ve seen girls that had grand necklaces and things, and bangles. Bangles are very much worn here now. But papa never sent me any. I had to buy what I wear.” She held out a wrist to him laden with these ornaments of the flimsiest description, wires of silver manufactured to suit a sudden demand. “I am sure that he would have sent you things like these had he thought you cared.” “What for would I not care?” said the unconscious girl with great reasonableness. She turned the bangles round and round upon her outstretched arm, holding it up to see how they looked, and not unwilling, perhaps, that the visitor should see how slim and white it was. The girl was pretty in her way. She had a wonderful amount of ribbons, a necklace with several lockets suspended round her neck, and about a dozen bangles on each arm. What with looking at these, letting them drop upon her arm to judge the effect, glancing at her figure reflected in the little flat glass on the mantelpiece, and casting stealthy looks aside at the stranger to see how all these pretty ways moved him, she had the air of being so fully occupied that there was no wonder it did not occur to her to compare his elderly brown face with the portrait of her father hanging over the mirror on the wall. “Is your brother at home?” Mr. Rowland said.