ius.
My attention was once again captured by the name de Noel, how introduced
I know not, but it gave me an excuse for asking--

"Lady Atherley, what is Mrs. de Noel like?"

"Cecilia? She is rather tall and rather fair, with brown hair. Not
exactly pretty, but very ladylike-looking. I think she would be very
good-looking if she thought more about her dress."

"Is she clever?"

"No, not at all; and that is very strange, for the Atherleys are such a
clever family, and she has quite the ways of a clever person, too; so
odd, and so stupid about little things that anyone can remember. I don't
believe she could tell you, if you asked her, what relation her husband
was to Lord Stowell."

"She seems a great favourite."

"Oh, no one could possibly help liking her. She is the most good-natured
person; there is nothing she would not do to help one; she is a dear
thing, but most odd, so very odd. I often think it is so fortunate that
she married a sailor, because he is so much away from home."

"Don't they get on, then?"

"Oh dear, yes; they are devoted to each other, and he thinks everything
she does quite perfect. But then he is very different from most men; he
thinks so little about eating, and he takes everything so easy; I don't
think he cares what strange people Cecilia asks to the house."

"Strange people!"

"Well; strange people to have on a visit. Invalids and--people that have
nowhere else they could go to."

"Do you mean poor people from the East End?"

"Oh no; some of them are quite rich. She had an idiot there with his
mother once who was heir to a very large fortune in the Colonies
somewhere; but of course nobody else would have had them, and I think
it must have been very uncomfortable. And then once she actually had a
woman who had taken to drinking. I did not see her, I am thankful to
say, but there was a deformed person once staying there, I saw him being
wheeled about the garden. It was very unpleasant. I think people like
that should always live shut up."

There was a little pause, and then Lady Atherley added--

"Cecilia has never been the same since her baby died. She used to have
such a bright colour before that. He was not quite two years old, but
she felt it dreadfully; and it was a great pity, for if he had lived he
would have come in for all the Stowell property."

The door opened.

"Why, George; how late you are, and--how wet! Is it raining?"

"Yes; hard."

"Have you bought the po