"No, I don't," said Muriel, "unless you mean exactly what I said just now, and you bit my head off for. Mr. Clinton is what some people call a swell, and Dick is a swell too. The Grahams aren't swells, and the Birkets aren't either. And if you want it quite straight, my dear, neither you nor I are swells; we're only what they call county." "You're so sensible, Muriel darling!" said Cicely. "And you've had your head turned, Cicely darling!" retorted Muriel. "You have been taken up by your great relations, and you have come back to your simple home discontented." "It's all very well, though," said Cicely, becoming serious again, "but I'm a Clinton just as much as the boys are, and just as much as you are a Graham. You say the Grahams are not swells--you do use horrible language, Muriel dear--but I suppose Lord Conroy is, and so, according to your argument, you ought to be." "Uncle Blobs isn't a swell--he's only a farmer with a title." "Oh! then I don't know what you mean by a swell." "Well, of course the Conroys _are_ swells in a way, but they don't care about swelling. If mother had liked--and father had let her--she could have been a fashionable lady, and dear Muriel could have been a fashionable girl, with her picture in the illustrated papers, sitting in front of a lattice window with a sweet white frock and a bunch of lilies. 'We give this week a charming photograph of Miss Muriel Graham, the only daughter of the Honourable Mrs. Graham. Mrs. Graham is a daughter of' and so on. As it is, dear Muriel is just the daughter of a country squire." "That is all dear Cicely is, though you said just now that father was a swell. I don't see, really, that he is much more of a swell than Mr. Graham was--here." "No--he isn't--here. That's just it. That is what you are running your head against, my dear. Perhaps he isn't really a swell at all, now. But he could be if he liked, and he was when he was young. It is because he likes being a country squire best that you have got to put up with being a country squire's daughter. I'm sorry for you, as you seem to feel it so much, but I'm afraid there's no help for it. I don't think, really, you have much to grumble at, but I suppose if you live for a fortnight exclusively amongst dukes and duchesses, you _are_ apt to get a little above yourself. Now tell me all about the Court Ball." Cicely told her all about the Court Ball; then they talked about other things, and Muriel said, "You have never asked about Jim. His ship is due in London next Wednesday and he will be home the day after." "Dear old Jim," said Cicely--she was at work on some embroidery for Muriel. "It will be jolly to see him back again. But it doesn't seem like a year since he went away." "_You_ don't seem to have missed him much." "O yes, I have. But it was like when the boys went back to school or to Cambridge--frightfully dull at first, and then you got used to it, and they were back before you knew where you were."