‘Why, you are quite a little woman of the world!’ ‘That is what mamma says; but so would you, if you were asked about your people, and all sorts of questions put to you. I always used to feel so ashamed, when the colonel’s wife began to talk to me, that I had not an uncle an earl, or even a baronet. That would have been better than nothing, for Frank’s sake. I do think he felt it sometimes, and was angry that his wife was a nobody; but then when Lady Sinclair took me up,’ Alice said, with a sparkle in her eyes,--‘and the Governor-General is baby’s godfather,--that made all the difference. It was quite absurd the difference it made.’ ‘And I hope you have kept up your music,’ said Mary, thinking of Mrs. Renton. But to Alice the question had another meaning, and covered her soft face with a sudden blush. ‘I am so glad! Lady Sinclair does not care for music,’ she cried; ‘not one bit! She does not know Beethoven from Verdi. It was me she liked, and not my playing. Oh, if you knew how impertinent they used to be! saying I must have been professional, and such cruel things;--not that there would have been any harm in being professional,--but only you know men have such prejudices, and it made Frank furious. But it was me Lady Sinclair liked, though I dare say you are surprised,’ Alice added, with a laugh of pleasant girlish vanity. Her heart was thrown wide open by the excitement of the home-coming; all its envelopes of shyness and strangeness having been forgotten for the moment. Except with ‘mamma,’ she had never chattered so freely to any one in her life. ‘Very much surprised,’ Mary said, kissing the bright face which had come upon her like a revelation. They had jumped all at once into the tenderest intimacy. Frank’s bride had been a timid little stranger the last time she was at Renton, afraid to speak, carrying herself very gingerly among her unknown relations; but she was flushed by the delight of being among her own people this time, and confident of everybody’s regard. ‘I think really I ought to go to grandmamma now,’ she added, after that pleasant laugh. And Mary hastened to her godmother to prepare the way. Mrs. Renton had just finished dressing, and was lying on her sofa, to recover from the exertion, sipping her cup of arrowroot. She was in a pale grey dress, which, she flattered herself, was slightly mourning, but had some pretty pink ribbons in her cap, to which that description could scarcely be applied. They were not perhaps very suitable to her widowhood, but then they were very becoming; and when the sun is shining brightly, even an invalid lady upon a sofa is apt to feel an inclination towards such innocent vanities. ‘My mistress has taken a biscuit with her arrowroot this morning,’ said the maid, in a tone of exultation. ‘I always said as a little bit of company was the thing that would do her most good.’