se one altogether."

"In fact, you were all jealous," said Rosamond.

At which everybody laughed, which was her sole intention; but Cecil,
who had said so much less, really thought what Rosamond said in mere
play. Those extorted thanks seemed to her a victory of her sex in a
field she had never thought of; and though she had no desire to
emulate the lady, and felt that a daughter of Dunstone must remember
noblesse oblige, the focus of her enthusiasm was in an odd state of
shifting.

CHAPTER VIII
Unsatisfactory

On the evening of the party at Strawyers, Mrs. Poynsett lay on her
sofa, thinking, with a trying recurrence, of that unfortunate and
excellent German Dauphine, who was pronounced by the Duchess of
Orleans to have died of her own stupidity.

After a fortnight had brought no improvement, but rather the
reverse, to poor Anne's wan looks and feeble languid deportment,
Mrs. Poynsett had insisted on her seeing the doctor; and had been
assured by him that there was nothing amiss, and that if Mrs Miles
Charnock could only be roused and occupied she would be perfectly
well, but that her pining and depression might so lower her tone as
to have a serious effect on her health.

There was no hope of her husband's return for at least a year,
likely eighteen months. What was to be done with her? What could
be a more unpropitious fate than for a Colonial girl, used to an
active life of exertion and usefulness, and trained to all domestic
arts, to be set down in a great English household where there was
really nothing for her to do, and usefulness or superintendence
would have been interfering; besides, as Miles had thoughts of
settling at the Cape, English experience would serve her little.

She had not cultivation enough for any pursuit to interest her. She
was not musical, could not draw; and when Mrs. Poynsett had, by way
of experiment, asked her to read aloud an hour a day, and selected
the Lives of the Lindsays, as an unexceptionable and improving book,
full of Scottish history, and even with African interest, she
dutifully did her task as an attention to her invalid mother-in-law,
but in a droning husky tone, finding it apparently as severe a
penance as it was to her auditor.

The doctor's chief prescription was horse exercise; but what would a
constitutional canter be to one accustomed to free rides through the
Bush? And she would generally be alone; for even if Charlie, her
nearest approach to an