and younger, among whom it was impossible at first to distinguish one from the other.  So similar was in every case the display of French flowers, gloves and embroidery; so accordant the make of every dress and the modulation of every tone.  Mme. Lasalle herself was, however, prominent, having a pair of black eyes which once fairly seen were for ever after easily recognizable.  Fine eyes, too; bright and merry, which made themselves quite at home in your face in half a minute.  She was overflowing with graciousness.  Her nephew, the gentleman of the roses, the only cavalier of the party, kept himself in a modest background.

‘I have been longing to see you at home, my dear,’ said Mme. Lasalle.  ’All in good time; but I always am impatient for what I want.  And then we have all wanted you; the places of social comfort in the neighbourhood are so few that we cannot afford to have Chickaree shut up.  This beautiful old house!  I am so delighted to be in it again.  But I hope you have met with no accident this morning?  You have not?’

‘Accident?—­O no!’

‘You have surely not been thrown,’ said another lady.

‘No, ma’am.’  The demure face was getting all alight with secret fun.

‘But how was it?’ pursued Mme. Lasalle, with an air of interest.  ’We saw you walk up to the door—­what had become of your horse?’

‘He walked to another door.’

‘And you have really been taking foot exercise this morning,’ said the lady, in whose eyes and the lines of her face might be seen a slight shadow.  Miss Kennedy then had been on foot of choice, and so accompanied!  And Wych Hazel was too inexperienced to notice—­but her guardian was not—­that Mr. Nightingale, to whom he had been talking, paused in his attention and turned to catch the answer.

‘I have been finding out that my woods need attention,’ said Miss Kennedy, who never chose to be catechised if she could help it.  ’It is astonishing that they can have grown so much in these years when I have grown so little!’

’You have got to make acquaintance with a great many other things here besides your trees.  Do you know any of your neighbours? or is it all unbroken ground?’

‘I do not even know how much there is to break.’

‘How delicious!’ remarked a languid lady.  ’Think of coming into a region where all is new!  Things get so tiresome when you know them too well.’

‘People and all!’ said Mr. Falkirk.

’Well, yes—­don’t you think they do?  When there is nothing more to be found out about them.’

‘I don’t agree with you,’ said another lady.  ’I think it’s so tiresome to find them out.  When you once know them, then you give up being disappointed.’

‘My dear Clara!’ said Mme. Lasalle, ’what a misanthropical sentiment!  Miss Kennedy, I know by her face, will never agree with you.  Were you ever disappointed, my dear, in your life?  There!  I know you were not.’