“Well, Everard, if I were you I should have more pride,” said Miss Susan. “I would not allow myself to be taken up and thrown aside as those girls please. What you can see in them baffles me. They are not very pretty. They are very loud, and fast and noisy--” “I think so too!” cried Giovanna, clapping her hands. “They are my enemies: they take you away, M. ’Erbert and Mademoiselle Reine. They make it dull here.” “Only for a day,” said Herbert, bending over her, his eyes melting and glowing with that delightful suffusion of satisfied vanity which with so many men represents love. “I could not stay long away if I would,” said the young man in a lower tone. He was quite captivated by her frank demonstrations of personal loss, and believed them to the bottom of his heart. Miss Susan threw a curious, half-startled look at them, and Reine raised her head from her embroidery; but both of these ladies had something of their own on their minds which occupied them, and closed their eyes to other matters. Reine was secretly uneasy that Everard should go away; that there should have been no explanation between them; and that his tone had in it a certain suppressed bitterness. What had she done to him? Nothing. She had been occupied with her brother, as was natural; any one else would have been the same. Everard’s turn could come at any time, she said to herself, with an unconscious arrogance not unusual with girls, when they are sure of having the upper hand. But she was uneasy that he should go away. “I don’t want to interfere with your pleasures, Herbert,” said Miss Susan, “but I must settle what I am to do. Our cottage is ready for us, everything is arranged; and I want to give up my charge to you, and go away.” “To go away!” the brother and sister repeated together with dismay. “Of course; that is what it must come to. When you were under age it was different. I was your guardian, Herbert, and you were my children.” “Aunt Susan,” cried Reine, coming up to her with eager tenderness, “we are your children still.” “And I--am not at all sure whether it will suit me to take up all you have been doing,” said Herbert. “It suits you, why should we change; and how could Reine manage the house? Aunt Susan, it is unkind to come down upon us like this. Leave us a little time to get used to it. What do you want with a cottage? Of course you must like Whiteladies best.” “Oh, Aunt Susan! what he says is not so selfish as it sounds,” said Reine. “Why--why should you go?” “We are all selfish,” said Herbert, “as Madame Jean says. She wishes us to stay because it is dull without us (‘Bien, très dull,’ said Giovanna), and we want you to stay because we are not up to the work and don’t understand it. Never mind the cottage; there is plenty of room in Whiteladies for all of us. Aunt Susan, why should you be disagreeable? Don’t go away.” “I wish it; I wish it,” she said in a low tone; “let me go!”