‘He must be very good!’ said Louisa, in a low, impressed voice, and fondling her sister’s hand.  ‘Will he be as good as Sir Roland?’

‘Oh!  I am glad he is coming!’ cried Virginia.  ’We have so wished to see somebody very good!’

A bell rang—­a signal that Lady Conway would be in her room, where she liked her two girls to come to her while she was dressing.  Louisa reluctantly detached herself from her sister, and Virginia lingered to say, ’Dress quickly, please, please, Isabel.  I know there is a new bit of Sir Roland done!  Oh!  I hope Mr. Dynevor is like him!’

‘Not quite,’ said Isabel, smiling as they ran away.  ’Poor children, I am afraid they will be disappointed; but long may their craving be to see ‘somebody very good!’

‘I am very glad they should meet any one answering the description,’ said the governess.  ’I don’t gather that you are much delighted with the object of the expedition.’

’A pretty boy—­very pretty.  It quite explains all I have ever heard of his mother.’

‘As you told the children.’

’More than I told the children.  Their aunt never by description seemed to me my ideal, as you know.  I would rather have seen a likeness to Lord Ormersfield, who—­though I don’t like him—­has something striking in the curt, dry, melancholy dignity of his manner.’

‘And how has Lord Fitzjocelyn displeased you?’

’Perhaps there is no harm in him—­he may not have character enough for that; but talk, attitudes, everything betrays that he is used to be worshipped—­takes it as a matter of course, and believes nothing so interesting as himself.’

‘Don’t you think you may have gone with your mind made up?’

’If you mean that I thought myself uncalled for, and heartily detested the expedition, you are right; but I saw what I did not expect.’

‘Was it very bad?’

’A very idle practical joke, such as I dislike particularly.  A quantity of wet sea-weed wound round Mr. Dynevor’s hat.’

Miss King laughed.  ’Really, my dear, I don’t think you know what young men like from each other.’

‘Mr. Dynevor did not like it,’ said Isabel, ’though he tried to pass it off lightly as the spirits of recovery.  Those spirits—­I am afraid he has too much to suffer from them.  There is something so ungenerous in practical wit, especially from a prosperous man to one unprosperous!’

’Well, Isabel, I won’t contradict, but I should imagine that such things often showed people to be on the best of terms.’

Isabel shook her head, and left the room, to have her dark hair braided, with little heed from herself, as she sat dreamily over a book.  Before the last bracelet was clasped, she was claimed by her two little sisters, who gave her no peace till her desk was opened, and a manuscript drawn forth, that they might hear the two new pages of her morning’s work.  It was a Fouque-like tale, relieving and