use, through the grand old hall, and up the wide, oak staircase, into
a room huge and old-fashioned--but delicious and cozy, and comfortable
to the last degree.

Having cast one hasty glance round the apartment, Miss Vibart turns to
her young hostess--

"You are Dulcinea? isn't it?" she says, questioningly.

"Yes, I am Dulcinea as a rule--(may I be your maid, just for once--you
will be so much happier without your hat)--but I have so many other
names, that it takes me all my time to remember which one I really
belong to. Uncle Christopher calls me Baby! and Mark Gore, when he is
here, calls me Duchess, and Dicky Browne calls me Tom, and Roger calls
me--I really quite forget what it is Roger calls me," with a slight
shrug of her shoulders.

"Is Dicky Browne your _fiance_?" asks Miss Vibart, uncertainly; "I know
you are engaged to somebody; Auntie Maud told me that."

"Dicky Browne! Oh, no!" Then, with the gayest little laugh in the world,
"If you could only _see_ Dicky Browne! He couldn't, by any possibility,
be _anybody's fiance_! You mean Roger, I suppose." But, with a quick
frown and a touch of petulance, "Don't let us talk about _him_. He is
such a worry, and has been making himself so exceedingly unpleasant all
the morning!"

Miss Vibart stares, forgetting her usually very charming manners for the
moment, and then drops her heavily-fringed lids over her eyes.

"By-the-by," says Dulce, breaking in upon what threatens to be an
awkward pause, "how d'ye do? I don't believe I have said that yet." Her
whole tone and expression have changed as if by magic; the suggestion of
ill-temper is gone; the former vivacity re-asserts itself. She lays her
hands upon her visitor's shoulders with a light, caressing gesture, and
leans towards her. "I shall give you a little kiss for your welcome, my
dear cousin, if I may," she says, very prettily.

Portia Vibart, acknowledging her grace, tells herself this new cousin
will suit very well, and returns her soft embrace with some warmth. She
is feeling tired, used up, _ennuye_ to the last degree; even the two or
three weeks she has had in town have been too much for her, and she has
come down to her uncle's house nearly ready to confess to herself that
she is seriously ill. Here, in the stillness, in this great room, with
the elms swaying to and fro outside her windows, and the distant cawing
of the rooks in the branches high up out of sight, she feels rest, and
comfort, and a curi