"May I have the crest, auntie?" clamours Tommy before she had read three words of it. "Is it about the horse he has offered you to ride?" asks his mother. But Vera answers nothing; she gets up quietly, and leaves the room without a word. "Extraordinary!" gasps Mrs. Daintree; "Vera's manners are certainly most abrupt and unlady-like at times, Marion. I think you ought to point it out to her." Marion murmurs some unintelligible excuse and follows her sister--leaving the unfortunate Tommy a prey to his grandmother's tender mercies. So brilliant an opportunity is not, of course, to be thrown away. Tommy's fingers, having incontinently strayed in the direction of the sugar-basin, are summarily slapped for their indiscretion, and an admonition is straightway delivered to him in forcible language concerning the pains and penalties which threaten the ulterior destiny of naughty little boys in general and of such of them in particular who are specially addicted to the abstraction of lumps of sugar from the breakfast-table. Meanwhile, Marion has found her sister in the adjoining room standing up alone upon the hearthrug with Sir John Kynaston's letter in her hands. She is not reading it now, she is looking steadfastly into the fire. It has fulfilled--nay, more than fulfilled--her wishes. The triumph of her success is pleasant to her, and has brought a little more than their usual glow into her cheeks, and yet--Heaven knows what vague and intangible dreams and fancies have not somehow sunk down chill and cold within her during the last five minutes. Gratified ambition--flattered vanity--the joy of success--all this she feels to the full; but nothing more! There is not one single other sensation within her. Her pulses have not quickened, ever so little, as she read her lover's letter; her heart has not throbbed, even once, with a sweeter, purer delight--such as she has read and heard that other women have felt. "I suppose I have no heart," said Vera to herself; "it must be that I am cold by nature. I am happy; but--but--I wonder what it feels like--this _love_--that there is so much talked and written about?" And then Marion came in breathlessly. "Oh, Vera, what is it?" Vera turns round to her, smiling serenely, and places the note in her hands. This is what Sir John Kynaston has written:--