‘So it’s settled, Augusta, is it?’ said she; ’the first of September.  I wish you joy with all my heart,’ and, coming round, she put her arm over Augusta’s shoulder and kissed her.  The Lady Alexandrina could not but think that the doctor’s niece uttered her congratulations very much as though she were speaking to an equal; very much as though she had a father and mother of her own.

‘You will have delicious weather,’ continued Mary.  ’September, and the beginning of October, is the nicest time of the year.  If I were going honeymooning it is just the time of year I would choose.’

‘I wish you were, Mary,’ said Beatrice.

’So do not I, dear, till I have found some decent sort of a body to honeymoon along with me.  I won’t stir out of Greshamsbury till I have sent you off before me, at any rate.  And where will you go, Augusta?’

‘We have not settled that,’ said Augusta.  ‘Mr Moffat talks of Paris.’

‘Who ever heard of going to Paris in September?’ said the Lady Alexandrina.

The Lady Alexandrina was not pleased to find how completely the doctor’s niece took upon herself to talk, and sit, and act at Greshamsbury as though she was on a par with the young ladies of the family.  That Beatrice should have allowed this would not have surprised her; but it was to be expected that Augusta would have shown better judgment.

’These things require some tact in their management; some delicacy when high interests are at stake,’ said she; ’I agree with Miss Thorne in thinking that, in ordinary circumstances, with ordinary people, perhaps, the lady should have her way.  Rank, however, has its drawbacks, Miss Thorne, as well as its privileges.’

‘I should not object to the drawbacks,’ said the doctor’s niece, ’presuming them to be of some use; but I fear I might fail in getting on so well with the privileges.’

The Lady Alexandrina looked at her as though not fully aware whether she intended to be pert.  In truth, the Lady Alexandrina was rather in the dark on the subject.  It was almost impossible, it was incredible, that a fatherless, motherless, doctor’s niece should be pert to an earl’s daughter at Greshamsbury, seeing that that earl’s daughter was the cousin of the miss Greshams.  And yet the Lady Alexandrina hardly knew what other construction to put on the words she had just heard.

It was at any rate clear to her that it was not becoming that she should just then stay any longer in that room.  Whether she intended to be pert or not, Miss Mary Thorne was, to say the least, very free.  The De Courcy ladies knew what was due to them—­no ladies better; and, therefore, the Lady Alexandrina made up her mind at once to go to her own bedroom.

‘Augusta,’ she said, rising slowly from her chair with much stately composure, ’it is nearly time to dress; will you come with me?  We have a great deal to discuss, you know.’

So she swam out of the room, and Augusta, telling Mary that she would see her again at dinner, swam—­no, tried to swim—­after her.  Miss Gresham had had great advantages; but she had not been absolutely brought up at Courcy Castle, and could not as yet quite assume the Courcy style of swimming.