“Yes, I have heard the story.”

“Do let us get our hats and run out.  I want to see everything.”

They went into the garden, and May, whilst delighting in all she saw, asked a multitude of questions about her great-aunt.  It was only in the intellectual domain that she evinced pretentiousness and grew grandiloquent; talking of her private affairs, she was very direct and simple, with no inclination to unhealthy ways of thought.  She spoke of her birth in Canada, and her childish recollections of that country.

“I used to be rather sorry that we had come back to England, for the truth is I don’t much care for Northampton, and I have never been quite comfortable with my relatives there.  But now, of course, everything is different.  It seems a great pity that I should have had such a relative as Lady Ogram and known nothing about it doesn’t it?  Strange how the branches of a family lose sight of each other?  Can you tell me Lady Ogram’s age?”

Constance replied that it was not far from eighty.

“Really, I should have taken her for older still.  She seems very nice; I think I shall like her.  I wonder whether she will ask me often to Rivenoak?  Do you know whether she means to?”

When she came down after dressing for dinner, Constance found Miss Tomalin in the dining-room, standing before her great-aunt’s portrait.

“Surely that isn’t—­can that be Lady Ogram?” exclaimed the girl.

“Yes; more than fifty years ago.”

“Do you know, I think she was rather like me!”

Constance smiled, and said that there was certainly a family resemblance.  It appeared more strongly in the girl’s face attired as she now was, her neck at liberty from the white linen collar, and her features cast into relief by a dress of dark material.  Having felt a little apprehensive about the young lady’s evening garb, Constance was surprised to find that it erred, if anything, on the side of simplicity.  Though, for several reasons, not at all predisposed to like Miss Tomalin, she began to feel her prejudice waning, and by the end of dinner they were conversing in a very friendly tone.  May chatted of her friends at Northampton, and several times mentioned a Mr. Yabsley, whom it was evident she held in much esteem.  Mr. Yabsley, it appeared, was the originator of the society for civilising the ignorant poor; Mr. Yabsley lectured on very large subjects, and gave readings from very serious authors; Mr. Yabsley believed in the glorious destinies of the human race, especially of that branch of it known as Anglo-Saxon.

“He is an elderly gentleman?” asked Constance, with a half-smile of mischief.

“Old!  Oh dear, no!  Mr. Yabsley is only about thirty—­not quite that, I think.”

And May suddenly turned to talk of Browning, whom she felt it a “positive duty” to know from end to end.  Had Miss Bride really mastered “Sordello?”