h him, while Clare and
Adrian followed. "I really never saw you looking so handsome. There's
something about your face--look at me--you needn't blush. You've grown to
an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes you admirably--and
those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Your style is irreproachable, quite
a style of your own! And nothing eccentric. You have the instinct of
dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as much as anything else.
Boy!--you see, I can't forget old habits. You were a boy when I left, and
now!--Do you see any change in him, Clare?" she turned half round to her
daughter.

"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glancing at him under
her eyelids.

"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.--Take my arm, Richard. Are
you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won't it be pleasant,
our being all in town together in the season? How fresh the Opera will be
to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come to the Forey's box
when you like. We are staying with the Foreys close by here. I think it's
a little too far out, you know; but they like the neighbourhood. This is
what I have always said: Give him more liberty! Austin has seen it at
last. How do you think Clare looking?"

The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin hastily, and
praised her looks.

"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed.

"Rather pale, aunt."

"Grown very much--don't you think, Richard?"

"Very tall girl indeed, aunt."

"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I'm sure I give
her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still continues. I
think she does not prosper away from her old companion. She was
accustomed to look up to you, Richard"--

"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted her.

"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense of a boy! Why did you
undertake to forward such stuff?"

"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way.

The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear Richard, is a game of
cross-purposes," she observed, dropping her fluency, and was rather
angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that she spoke so
like his father.

"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The Foreys wish to see
you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a reputation
on account of that"--she crushed an intruding adjective--"System you were
brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For my part, I thin