ad, about a certain matter.'

'And now you have made it all up?'

'Well, we have been able to talk of it (we couldn't before--without
painful scenes), and that has cleared the air. We have gone about
together a good deal,' Laura went on. 'She has wanted me constantly with
her.'

'That's very nice. And where has she taken you?' asked the old lady.

'Oh, it's I who have taken her, rather.' And Laura hesitated.

'Where do you mean?--to say her prayers?'

'Well, to some concerts--and to the National Gallery.'

Lady Davenant laughed, disrespectfully, at this, and the girl watched
her with a mournful face. 'My dear child, you are too delightful! You
are trying to reform her? by Beethoven and Bach, by Rubens and Titian?'

'She is very intelligent, about music and pictures--she has excellent
ideas,' said Laura.

'And you have been trying to draw them out? that is very commendable.'

'I think you are laughing at me, but I don't care,' the girl declared,
smiling faintly.

'Because you have a consciousness of success?--in what do they call
it?--the attempt to raise her tone? You have been trying to wind her up,
and you _have_ raised her tone?'

'Oh, Lady Davenant, I don't know and I don't understand!' Laura broke
out. 'I don't understand anything any more--I have given up trying.'

'That's what I recommended you to do last winter. Don't you remember
that day at Plash?'

'You told me to let her go,' said Laura.

'And evidently you haven't taken my advice.'

'How can I--how can I?'

'Of course, how can you? And meanwhile if she doesn't go it's so much
gained. But even if she should, won't that nice young man remain?' Lady
Davenant inquired. 'I hope very much Selina hasn't taken you altogether
away from him.'

Laura was silent a moment; then she returned: 'What nice young man would
ever look at me, if anything bad should happen?'

'I would never look at _him_ if he should let that prevent him!' the old
woman cried. 'It isn't for your sister he loves you, I suppose; is it?'

'He doesn't love me at all.'

'Ah, then he does?' Lady Davenant demanded, with some eagerness, laying
her hand on the girl's arm. Laura sat near her on her sofa and looked at
her, for all answer to this, with an expression of which the sadness
appeared to strike the old woman freshly. 'Doesn't he come to the
house--doesn't he say anything?' she continued, with a voice of
kindness.

'He comes to the house--very often.'

'And don't you