The causes of this deplorable breach of good understanding between two generally loving sisters, were now too near for them to exchange any further remarks about them at present. Lucy indignantly stuck her parasol between herself and them, and studied her Tauchnitz volume in moody dignity. Dora, perfectly conscious that the Wellfields were unaware of her existence, had no scruple in raising her head as they went past, and looking at them openly and scrutinisingly. They did not see her, being absorbed in conversation, and looking intently at one another. Avice was hanging upon her brother’s arm, which she had taken as they left the hotel, and was gazing with a sort of rapt attention into his face, as if something in his looks or his voice attracted her irresistibly. He had been saying something, and had ceased to speak, and this something seemed to give her matter for thought. Soon after they had passed the two girls, Avice said: ‘Jerome, since I knew you—how long is it?’ ‘It is just a month since I came to you here.’ ‘It seems an eternity of pleasure. My life has changed so much since then that I hardly know myself.’ ‘For the better, do you mean?’ he asked, looking down upon the delicately beautiful, upturned face, and feeling that Sara Ford’s words had been true: ‘She will some day be remarkably beautiful.’ ‘For the better, of course. I used to be very tired of my life sometimes. Often I have sat in our balcony, when we had one at any hotel we were staying at, and envied the ragged children playing in the street.’ ‘But why, child? My father seems to dote upon you.’ ‘Oh yes! he dotes upon me, I suppose. But when the doting takes the form of scarcely allowing me to leave the house, and never to go out alone—in all the places we have been at, I never went to see the sights like other girls—I am so ignorant—you cannot imagine _how_ ignorant. I know absolutely nothing.’ ‘You know French and German, and Italian and English.’ ‘What is that, when I am afraid to speak in them for fear of showing what an ignorant little fool I am!’ ‘And you know politics. I sat in silent awe and amazement the other day when you were telling my father about the ministerial tactics in France and England.’ ‘Oh! because I have read the papers to papa for years. I don’t know any grammar, nor any arithmetic, nor——’ ‘What can you want with them? Grammar is bosh.’ _‘Jerome!’_ ‘Of course it is bosh. Never be afraid to call it bosh. And as for arithmetic, you can add up what you receive and what you spend, I suppose.’