A shadow came over Miss Susan’s face. She forgot the appearances which she had been keeping up with Everard. The color went out of her cheeks; her eyes grew dull and dead, as if the life had died out of them. She put up her hands to stop this further demand upon her. “They cannot go on Sunday, of course,” she said, “and it is too late to go to-day. Stevens knows that as well as I do, and so do you all. Of course they mean to stay.” “And if you please, ma’am, Cook says the baby--” “No more, please, no more!” cried Miss Susan, faintly. “I shall come presently and talk to Cook.” “You want to get rid of these people,” said Everard, sympathetically, startled by her look. “You don’t like them, Aunt Susan, whatever you may say.” “I hate them!” she said, low under her breath, with a tone of feeling so intense that he was alarmed by it. Then she recovered herself suddenly, chased the cloud from her face, and fell back into the jaunty manner which had so much surprised and almost shocked him before. “Of course I don’t mean that,” she said, with a laugh. “Even I have caught your fashion of exaggeration; but I don’t love them, indeed, and I think a Sunday with them in the house is a very dismal affair to look forward to. Go and dress, Everard; there is the bell. I must go and speak to Cook.” While this conversation had been going on in-doors, the two foreigners thus discussed were walking up and down Priory Lane, in close conversation still. They did not hear the dressing-bell, or did not care for it. As for Giovanna, she had never yet troubled herself to ask what the preliminary bell meant. She had no dresses to change, and having no acquaintance with the habit which prescribed this alteration of costume in the evening, made no attempt to comply with it. The child clung about M. Guillaume’s neck, and gave power to his arguments, though it nearly strangled him with its close clasp. “My good Giovanna,” he said, “why put yourself in opposition to all your friends? We are your friends, though you will not think so. This darling, the light of our eyes, you will not steal him from us. Yes, my own! it is of thee I speak. The blessed infant knows; look how he holds me! You would not deprive me of him, my daughter--my dear child?” “I should not steal him, anyhow,” said the young woman, with an exultation which he thought cruel. “He is mine.”