‘You do not look at all tired, Ursie,’ observed Sara affectionately, laying her little gloved hand on mine.  ’She looks quite nice and fresh:  does she not, mother?—­I was so afraid that you would have come up in your nurse’s livery, as Jocelyn calls it,—­black serge, and a horrid dowdy bonnet.’

‘Oh no; I knew better than that,’ I returned, with a complacent glance at my handsome black silk, one of Uncle Brian’s presents.  I had the comfortable conviction that even Sara could not find fault with my bonnet and mantle.  I had made a careful toilet purposely, for I knew what importance they attached to such things.  Sara’s little speech rewarded me, as well as Aunt Philippa’s approving look.

‘It has not done her any harm,’ I heard her observe, sotto voce.  ’She certainly looks younger.’

I took advantage of a pause in Sara’s chatter to ask after Jill.  Aunt Philippa answered me, for Sara was bowing towards a passing carriage.

’Oh, poor child, she wanted to come with us to meet you, but it was Professor Hugel’s afternoon.  He teaches her German literature, you know.  I was anxious for her not to miss his lesson, and she was very good about it.  She is coming down to afternoon tea, and of course we shall see her in the evening.’

’Poor dear Jocelyn! she was longing to come, I know.  You and Miss Gillespie are terribly severe,’ observed Sara, with a light laugh.  She was so free and gay herself that she rather pitied her young sister, condemned to the daily grind of lessons and hard work.

‘Nonsense, Sara!’ returned her mother sharply.  ’We are not severe at all.  Jocelyn knows that it is all for her good if Miss Gillespie keeps her to her task.  My dear Ursula, we are all charmed with Miss Gillespie,—­even Sara, though she pretends to call her strict and old-fashioned.  She is a most amiable, ladylike woman, and Jocelyn is perfectly happy with her.

‘I am very pleased with Jocelyn,’ she went on.  ’You have done her good, Ursula, and both her father and I are very grateful to you.  She is not nearly so wayward and self-willed.  She takes great pains with her lessons, and is most industrious.  She is not so awkward, either, and Miss Gillespie thinks it will be a good plan if I take her out with me driving sometimes when Sara is married.  I shall only have Jocelyn then,’ finished Aunt Philippa, with a regretful look at her daughter.  I was much interested in all they had to tell me, but I was not sorry when we entered the Park and the stream of talk died away.

I almost felt as though I were in a dream, as the moving kaleidoscope of horses and carriages and foot-passengers passed before my eyes.

Yesterday at this time I was sitting in poor Robert Lambert’s whitewashed attic, listening to the sparrows that were twittering under the eaves.  When I had left the cottage I had walked down country roads, meeting nothing but a donkey-cart and two tramps.