ow the difference."

"Certainly I don't," said Rosamond. "It must be microscopic!"

"Only it shows the difference between culture and the reverse," said
Cecil.

"Well, you know, I'm the reverse," said Rosamond, leaning sleepily
back, and becoming silent; but Cecil was too anxious for
intelligence to let her rest, and asked on what Mrs. Duncombe was
saying.

"I am not quite sure--she was stirring up his public spirit, I
think, about the drainage; and they were both of them deploring the
slackness and insensibility of the corporation, and canvassing for
Mr. Whitlock, as I believe. It struck me as a funny subject for a
lady, but I believe she does not stick at trifles."

"No real work can be carried out by those who do," said Cecil.

"Oh!" added Rosamond, "I met Mrs. and Miss Bowater, and they desired
me to say that Jenny can't come till the dinner-party on the 20th,
and then they will leave her."

"How cool to send a message instead of writing!"

"Oh! she has always been like one of themselves, like a sister to
them all."

"I can't bear that sort of people."

"What sort?"

"Who worm themselves in."

"Miss Bowater could have no occasion for worming. They must be
quite on equal terms."

"At any rate, she was only engaged to their poor relation."

"What poor relation? Tell me! Who told you?"

"Raymond. It was a young attorney--a kind of cousin of the Poynsett
side, named Douglas."

"What? There's a cross in the churchyard to Elizabeth Douglas,
daughter of Francis Poynsett, and wife of James Douglas, and at the
bottom another inscription to Archibald Douglas, her son, lost in
the Hippolyta."

"Yes, that must be the man. He was flying from England, having been
suspected of some embezzlement."

"Indeed! And was Jenny engaged to him? Julius told me that Mrs.
Douglas had been his mother's dearest friend, and that this Archie
had been brought up with them, but he did not say any more."

"Perhaps he did not like having had a cousin in an attorney's
office. I am sure I had no notion of such a thing."

Rosamond laughed till she was exhausted at the notion of Julius's
sharing the fastidious objections she heard in Cecil's voice; and
then, struck by the sadness of the story, she cried, "And that makes
them all so fond of Miss Bowater. Poor girl, what must she not have
gone through! And yet how cheerful she does look!"

"People say," proceeded Cecil, unable to resist the impulse to
acquire a pa