It was at this that the eager sweetness of Diana's manner to her cousin had shown its first cooling. And Mrs. Colwood had curiously observed that at the first sign of shrinking on her part, Miss Fanny's demeanor had instantly changed. It had become sugared and flattering to a degree. Everything in the house was "sweet"; the old silver used at table, with the Mallory crest, was praised extravagantly; the cooking no less. Yet still Diana's tired silence had grown; and the watching eyes of this amazing young woman had been, in Mrs. Colwood's belief, now insolently and now anxiously, aware of it. Insolence!--that really, if one came to think of it, had been the note of Miss Merton's whole behavior from the beginning--an ill-concealed, hardly restrained insolence, toward the girl, two years older than herself, who had received her with such tender effusion, and was, moreover, in a position to help her so materially. What could it--what did it mean? Mrs. Colwood stood at the foot of the stairs a moment, lost in a trance of wonderment. Her heart was really sore for Diana's disappointment, for the look in her face, as she left the house. How on earth could the visit be shortened and the young lady removed? The striking of three o'clock reminded Muriel Colwood that she was to take the new-comer out for an hour. They had taken coffee in the morning-room up-stairs, Diana's own sitting-room, where she wrote her letters and followed out the lines of reading her father had laid down for her. Mrs. Colwood returned thither; found Miss Merton, as it seemed to her, in the act of examining the letters in Diana's blotting-book; and hastily proposed to her to take a turn in the garden. Fanny Merton hesitated, looked at Mrs. Colwood a moment dubiously, and finally walked up to her. "Oh, I don't care about going out, it's so cold and nasty. And, besides, I--I want to talk to you." "Miss Mallory thought you might like to see the old gardens," said Mrs. Colwood. "But if you would rather not venture out, I'm afraid I must go and write some letters." "Why, you were writing letters all the morning! My fingers would drop off if I was to go on at it like that. Do you like being a companion? I should think it was rather beastly--if you ask me. At home they did talk about it for me. But I said: 'No, thank you! My own mistress, if you please!'" The speaker sat down by the fire, raised her skirt of purple cloth, and stretched a pair of shapely feet to the warmth. Her look was good-humored and lazy. "I am very happy here," said Mrs. Colwood, quietly. "Miss Mallory is so charming and so kind." Miss Fanny cleared her throat, poked the fire with the tip of her shoe, fidgeted with her dress, and finally said--abruptly: "I say--have all the people about here called?"