"She kissed the Queen's hand?" palpitated Statira Belden with an interest that she could not stifle; and again Eliza Marshall answered neither yes nor no. Rosamund had not kissed the Queen's hand, but her husband's family had been so fascinated by her beauty, so amazed by her genius for dress, and so confounded by her boundless aplomb, that one of them had suggested that she attire herself in a costume which had served a daughter of the house at a Drawing-room some six months before, and others had demanded that she be photographed in it. This was the pleasantest impression that Rosy brought back of her husband's family--their generous and unbounded appreciation of herself. Her other impressions were less acute. Boxton Park itself she had found comfortable, but not at all splendid; and as for its occupants, they were, in the main, staid and serious people who were doing what they could to justify the favors that fortune had bestowed upon them. Rosy sometimes felt that, in general terms, they might have appreciated Jane quite as fully as they had appreciated her. They were not gay, they were not lively, they were not like Arthur. Paston had truly described himself as the youngest, and he was by far the most jovial and blithesome. Rosy had not delayed her return on account of any presentation at court--though the achievement of the photograph may have accounted for a few days more or less--but on account of the fox-hunting, which had completely fascinated her. Horse, habit, and country were all in perfect accord; her prosaic and hum-drum practice at home was now transmuted into the purest poetry, and under the promptings of this new afflatus she developed a grace and a daring which accomplished the final and irrevocable conquest of all her husband's family. Rosy's continued sojourn in England cost her husband his position and prospects in America, where he was not of enough importance to assume such liberties. But this mattered nothing to his wife. She had lived for more than a fortnight at the seat of a county family, she had breathed the air of deference that exists for the gentry of the shires, and she was far from any thought of a permanent submission to the rasping crudities of provincial America. She had already developed the fixed determination to return to London for the "season," to accomplish an actual presentation at court, and to make England her future home for the rest of her days.