“I have found a cousin!” she said, gayly, and told the story of her expected visitor.

Outwardly—­perfunctorily—­Sir James’s aspect while she was speaking answered to hers.  If she was pleased, he was pleased too.  He congratulated her; he entered into her schemes for Miss Merton’s amusement.  Really, all the time, the man’s aspect was singularly grave, he listened carefully to every word; he observed the speaker.

“The young lady’s mother is your aunt?”

“She was my mother’s sister.”

“And they have been long in Barbadoes?”

“I think they migrated there just about the same time we went abroad—­after my mother’s death.”

Sir James said little.  He encouraged her to talk on; he listened to the phrases of memory or expectation which revealed her history—­her solitary bringing-up—­her reserved and scholarly father—­the singular closeness, and yet as it seemed strangeness of her relation to him.  It appeared, for instance, that it was only an accident, some years before, which had revealed to Diana the very existence of these cousins.  Her father had never spoken of them spontaneously.

“I hope she will be everything that is charming and delightful,” he said at last as he rose.  “And remember—­I am to come and see you!”

He stooped his gray head, and gently touched her hand with an old man’s freedom.

Diana warmly renewed her invitation.

“There is a house near you that I often go to—­Sir William Felton’s.  I am to be there in a few weeks.  Perhaps I shall even be able to make acquaintance with Miss Fanny!”

He walked away from her.

Diana could not see the instant change of countenance which accompanied the movement.  Urbanity, gentleness, kind indulgence vanished.  Sir James looked anxious and disturbed; and he seemed to be talking to himself.

The rest of the morning passed heavily.  Diana wrote some letters, and devoutly hoped the rain would stop.  In the intervals of her letter-writing, or her study of the clouds, she tried to make friends with Miss Drake and Mrs. Fotheringham.  But neither effort came to good.  Alicia, so expansive, so theatrical, so much the centre of the situation, when she chose, could be equally prickly, monosyllabic, and repellent when it suited her to be so.  Diana talked timidly of dress, of London, and the Season.  They were the subjects on which it seemed most natural to approach Miss Drake; Diana’s attitude was inquiring and propitiatory.  But Alicia could find none but careless or scanty replies till Madeleine Varley came up.  Then Miss Drake’s tongue was loosened.  To her, as to an equal and intimate, she displayed her expert knowledge of shops and modistes, of “people” and their stories.  Diana sat snubbed and silent, a little provincial outsider, for whom “seasons” are not made.  Nor was it any better with Mrs. Fotheringham.  At twelve o’clock that lady brought the London