“Oh, I hope he is kind to them!” said Lady Stanton, clasping her white dimpled hands. “Are they like your family? I hope they are like the Musgraves. But likenesses are so strange--mine are not like me,” said the old beauty, plaintively. Perhaps the trouble in her face was less on account of her own private trials in this respect than out of alarm lest John Musgrave’s children should bear the likeness of another face of which she could not think with kindness. There was so little disguise in her mind, that this sentiment also found its way into words. “Oh Mary,” she cried, “you and I were once the two beauties, and everybody was at our feet; but that common girl was more thought of than either you or me.” “Hush!” said Mary Musgrave, putting up her hand; “she is dead.” “Is she dead?” Lady Stanton was struck with a momentary horror; for it was a contemporary of whom they were speaking, and she could not but be conscious of a little shiver in her own well-developed person, to think of the other who was clay. “That is why they have come home?” she said, half under her breath. “Yes; and because he cannot carry them about with him wherever he goes.” “You have heard from him, Mary? I hope he is doing well. I hope he is not--very--heart-broken. If you are writing you might say I inquired. He might like to know that he was remembered; and you know I always took--an interest----” “I know you always had the kindest heart.” “I always took an interest, notwithstanding everything; and--will he come home? Now surely he might come home. It is so long ago; and surely now no one would interfere.” “I cannot say anything about that, for I don’t know,” said Miss Musgrave; “he does not say. Will you come and see the children, Lady Stanton?”