r
the photographs she had brought home, but Mrs. Morton was never unkind
when alone with her, and she had all the natural delight of youth in
relating her adventures. Mrs. Morton, however, showed offence at not
having been sent for instead of Mrs. Bury.--'So much less of a relation,'
and Constance found herself dwelling on the ruggedness of the pass, and
the difficulties of making oneself understood, but Mrs. Morton still
persisted that she 'could not understand why they should have got into
such a place at all, when there were plenty of fashionable places in the
newspaper where they could have had society and attendance and
everything.'

'Ah, but that was just what Uncle Frank didn't want.'

'Well, if they choose to be so eccentric, and close and shy, they can't
wonder that people talk.'

'Mamma, you can't mean that horrid nonsense that Ida talked about! It
was only a joke!'

'Oh, my dear, I don't say that I suspect anything--oh no,--only, if they
had not been so close and queer, one would have been able to contradict
it. I like people to be straightforward, that's all I have to say. And
it is terribly hard on your poor brother to be so disappointed, after
having his expectations so raised!' and Mrs. Morton melted into tears,
leaving Constance with nothing to say, for in the first place, she did
not think Herbert, as yet at least, was very sensible of his loss, and in
the next, she did not quite venture to ask her mother whether she thought
little Michael should have been sacrificed to Herbert's expectations. So
she took the wiser course of producing a photograph of Vienna.

CHAPTER XXIII
VELVET

Constance created quite a sensation when she came down dressed for church
on Christmas Day in a dark blue velvet jacket, deeply trimmed with silver
fox, and a hat and muff _en suite_, matching with her serge dress, and
though unpretending, yet very handsome.

Up jumped Ida, from lacing her boots by the fire. 'Well, I never! They
are spoiling you! Real velvet, I declare, and real silk-wadded lining.
Look, ma. What made them dress you like that?'

'It wasn't them,' said Constance, 'it was Lady Adela. One Sunday in
October it turned suddenly cold, and I had only my cloth jacket, and she
sent up for something warm for me. This was just new before she went
into black, when husband died, and she had put it away for Amice, but it
fitted me so well, and looked so nice, that she was so kind as to wish me
t