“The idea! and—­oh no! no! it is not that.  But even in the country we had always some society.”

“Well, dyar, believe me, with your appeawance, you can have as much society as you please; but it will boa you to death, as it does me, and then you will long to be left quiet with a sensible man who loves you.”

Said Rosa, “When shall I have another tete-a-tete with you, I wonder?  Oh, it has been such a comfort to me.  Bless you for coming.  There—­I wrote to Cecilia, and Emily, and Mrs. Bosanquet that is now, and all my sworn friends, and to think of you being the one to come—­you that never kissed me but once, and an earl’s daughter into the bargain.”

“Ha! ha! ha!”—­Lady Cicely actually laughed for once in a way, and did not feel the effort.  “As for kissing,” said she, “if I fall shawt, fawgive me.  I was nevaa vewy demonstwative.”

“No; and I have had a lesson.  That Florence Cole—­Florence Whiting that was, you know—­was always kissing me, and she has turned out a traitor.  I’ll tell you all about her.”  And she did.

Lady Cicely thought Mrs. Staines a little too unreserved in her conversation; but was so charmed with her sweetness and freshness that she kept up the acquaintance, and called on her twice a week during the season.  At first she wondered that her visits were not returned; but Rosa let out that she was ashamed to call on foot in Grosvenor Square.

Lady Cicely shrugged her beautiful shoulders a little at that; but she continued to do the visiting, and to enjoy the simple, innocent rapture with which she was received.

This lady’s pronunciation of many words was false or affected.  She said “good murning” for “good morning,” and turned other vowels to diphthongs, and played two or three pranks with her “r’s.”  But we cannot be all imperfection:  with her pronunciation her folly came to a full stop.  I really believe she lisped less nonsense and bad taste in a year than some of us articulate in a day.  To be sure, folly is generally uttered in a hurry, and she was too deplorably lazy to speak fast on any occasion whatever.

One day Mrs. Staines took her up-stairs, and showed her from the back window her husband pacing the yard, waiting for patients.  Lady Cicely folded her arms, and contemplated him at first with a sort of zoological curiosity.  Gentleman pacing back yard, like hyena, she had never seen before.

At last she opened her mouth in a whisper, “What is he doing?”

“Waiting for patients.”

“Oh!  Waiting—­for—­patients?”

“For patients that never come, and never will come.”

“Cuwious!  How little I know of life.”

“It is that all day, dear, or else writing.”

Lady Cicely, with her eyes fixed on Staines, made a motion with her hand that she was attending.

“And they won’t publish a word he writes.”

“Poor man!”

“Nice for me; is it not?”