"Your aunt," said Lady Julia, seeming to put a touch of sarcasm into the tone of her voice as she repeated the word--"your aunt has never enjoyed good health since she left this house; but that is a long time ago." "A very long time," said Crosbie, who was not accustomed to be left in his chair silent. "You, Dale, at any rate, can hardly remember it." "But I can remember it," said Lady Julia, gathering herself up. "I can remember when my sister Fanny was recognized as the beauty of the country. It is a dangerous gift, that of beauty." "Very dangerous," said Crosbie. Then Lily laughed again, and Lady Julia became more angry than ever. What odious man was this whom her neighbours were going to take into their very bosom! But she had heard of Mr. Crosbie before, and Mr. Crosbie also had heard of her. "By-the-by, Lady Julia," said he, "I think I know some very dear friends of yours." "Very dear friends is a very strong word. I have not many very dear friends." "I mean the Gazebees. I have heard Mortimer Gazebee and Lady Amelia speak of you." Whereupon Lady Julia confessed that she did know the Gazebees. Mr. Gazebee, she said, was a man who in early life had wanted many advantages, but still he was a very estimable person. He was now in Parliament, and she understood that he was making himself useful. She had not quite approved of Lady Amelia's marriage at the time, and so she had told her very old friend Lady De Courcy; but-- And then Lady Julia said many words in praise of Mr. Gazebee, which seemed to amount to this; that he was an excellent sort of man, with a full conviction of the too great honour done to him by the earl's daughter who had married him, and a complete consciousness that even that marriage had not put him on a par with his wife's relations, or even with his wife. And then it came out that Lady Julia in the course of the next week was going to meet the Gazebees at Courcy Castle. "I am delighted to think that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you there," said Crosbie. "Indeed!" said Lady Julia. "I am going to Courcy on Wednesday. That, I fear, will be too early to allow of my being of any service to your ladyship." Lady Julia drew herself up, and declined the escort which Mr. Crosbie had seemed to offer. It grieved her to find that Lily Dale's future husband was an intimate friend of her friend's, and it especially grieved her to find that he was now going to that friend's house. It was a grief to her, and she showed that it was. It also grieved Crosbie to find that Lady Julia was to be a fellow guest with himself at Courcy Castle; but he did not show it. He expressed nothing but smiles and civil self-congratulation on the matter, pretending that he would have much delight in again meeting Lady Julia; but, in truth, he would have given much could he have invented any manoeuvre by which her ladyship might have been kept at home.