‘The boy likes to feel as if he were one of the family, I suppose,’ she said to Miss Hadley, who looked on sometimes, with her knitting, and did not approve;--‘for he is only a boy.’ ‘He is boy enough to be fond of women a dozen years older than himself,’ said Miss Hadley, with a significant nod. To which Mrs. Severn, with her eyes fixed on the fire, made no immediate reply. ‘After all, it is quite natural,’ the padrona continued, after a pause; ‘he is separated from his own family by this strange business;--and such an affectionate, soft-hearted fellow!’ ‘Well, I think it is chiefly affectionateness,’ Miss Hadley admitted: and she added after a moment: ‘It cannot be for Alice, as I thought!’ ‘The child!’ cried Mrs. Severn, in alarm. ‘She is but a child. Don’t talk as if it were possible any one should dream of stealing her from me. What should we do without Alice?’ cried the mother, with a sudden pang. ‘Jane, I hope you will not do anything to put such ideas in any one’s mind.’ ‘Such ideas come of themselves,’ said Miss Hadley. ‘She will be sixteen in summer. She is of more use than many a woman of six-and-twenty. She must marry some time or other. Why, what else could you look for when you refused to bring her up to do anything? A girl who has no fortune in this world must either marry, or work, or starve; and I don’t know,’ said the strong-minded woman, with energy, ‘which is the worst.’ ‘Hush,’ said the padrona, with a smile, ‘infidel! and here is the child going to her music. Alice, come and look me in the face.’ ‘Have I been naughty, mamma?’ said Alice, bending over her mother. For a moment the two looked into each other’s eyes, with the perfect love, and trust, and understanding which belongs to that dearest of relationships. If it gave a pang to the heart of the woman looking on, who had no child, I cannot tell. The mother lifted her face, still warm with all the vigour, and softness, and beauty of life, and kissed the lovely, soft cheek, in its perfection of youth. ‘It would be no wonder if any one loved her,’ she said softly, when the child had disappeared into the soft darkness in the next room, her heart wrung with a premonitory pang of tender anguish. That was the night on which Laurie brought his brother Frank,--splendid young Guardsman, who had run up to town to endeavour to arrange the exchange he wanted into a regiment going to India,--to introduce him to his friends in the Square. But on the Thursday he rushed in breathless for five minutes only in the gloaming, to keep the padrona _au courant_ of affairs. ‘We have placed the picture, and it shows splendidly!’ he cried. ‘The only thing I fear is that Suffolk will be sulky, and not show as well as the picture. Could not you send for him before he goes, and put him in a good humour? If he were out of temper it might spoil all.’