“Attachés,” said the young man, with a gravity which, serious as she also was, almost made Bee laugh, “are the material out of which ambassadors are made. Of course, it takes time----” Here Bee burst, without meaning it, into a nervous laugh. “You are so dreadfully serious about it,” she cried. “And what should a man be serious about, if not that?” the young man replied. Here for the moment, in great impatience on his part, and in the call of some little household necessity on hers, the conversation closed; but it was resumed as soon as the brother and sister were together again. The big boys were still at school, the little ones engaged with their lessons, and baby walking up and down in his nurse’s arms, did not interrupt the talk which went on between the elders of the family. And there is nothing with which it is so easy to indoctrinate a girl than enthusiasm about an ideal, whatever that may be, or sympathy in a lofty view of duty such as this, which had dawned, it seemed, upon her brother. Bee took fire, as was so natural. She said to herself, that in the utter downfall of her own life, it would be a fine thing to be able to further his, and kept to the idea of Charlie as ambassador, settling all sorts of difficulties and deciding the fortunes of the world for war or for peace, as easily as if the question had been one of leading a cotillion. How splendid it would be! She thought of herself as an old lady, white-haired, in a cap and shawl--for, in an imagination of twenty, there are few gradations between youth and that pathetic, yet satisfactory ultimate period--seated in a particular corner of a magnificent room at the Embassy, looking on at her brother’s triumph. These sort of reflected successes were the only ones she thought that would ever come to Bee. CHAPTER XII. “CHARLIE wishes to go up to Oxford to read. Why does he wish to go up to Oxford to read? And what reading is it necessary to do there?” “He says, papa, that it is easier to get on when you have all your books about you--and when you can arrange all your way of living for that, instead of the interruptions at home.” “Oh, there are too many interruptions at home? I should have thought you were quiet enough here. I hope you have not thrown yourself into lawn tennis parties, and tea parties, and that sort of thing--so soon, Bee.” Her father looked at her with a seriously reproachful air. He had begun to dine out pretty freely, though only in serious houses, and where, he explained, it would be prejudicial to him in his profession not to appear. The undeserved reproach brought quick tears to Bee’s eyes. “I have thrown myself into no parties,” she said, hastily. “Nobody has been here. What Charlie means is the meal times, and hours for everything, and all the children about. I have often heard you say that you couldn’t work when the children were playing about.” “My work and Charlie’s are rather different,” Colonel Kingsward said, with a smile.