Cecily would live to mature years; she had been motherless from infancy, and the difficulty with those who brought her up was to repress an activity of mind which seemed to be one cause of her bodily feebleness.  In those days there was a strong affection between her and Miriam Elgar, and it showed no sign of diminution in either when, on Mrs. Elgar’s death, a year and a half after Miriam’s marriage, Cecily passed into the care of her father’s sister, a lady of moderate fortune, of parts and attainments, and with a great love of cosmopolitan life.  A few months more and Mrs. Baske was to be a widow, childless, left in possession of some eight hundred a year, her house at Bartles, and a local importance to which she was not indifferent.  With the exception of her brother, away in London, she had no near kin.  It would now have been a great solace to her if Cecily Doran could have been her companion; but the young girl was in Paris, or Berlin, or St. Petersburg, and, as Miriam was soon to learn, the material distance between them meant little in comparison with the spiritual remoteness which resulted from Cecily’s education under Mrs. Lessingham.  They corresponded, however, and at first frequently; but letters grew shorter on both sides, and arrived less often.  The two were now to meet for the first time since Cecily was a child of fourteen.

The ladies arrived at the villa about eleven o’clock.  Miriam had shown herself indisposed to speak of them, both last evening, when Mallard was present, and again this morning when alone with her relatives; at breakfast she was even more taciturn than usual, and kept her room for an hour after the meal.  Then, however, she came to sit with Eleanor, and remained when the visitors were announced.

Mrs. Lessingham did not answer to the common idea of a strong-minded woman.  At forty-seven she preserved much natural grace of bearing, a good complexion, pleasantly mobile features.  Her dress was in excellent taste, tending to elaboration, such as becomes a lady who makes some figure in the world of ease.  Little wrinkles at the outer corners of her eyes assisted her look of placid thought fulness; when she spoke, these were wont to disappear, and the expression of her face became an animated intelligence, an eager curiosity, or a vivacious good-humour, Her lips gave a hint of sarcasm, but this was reserved for special occasions; as a rule her habit of speech was suave, much observant of amenities.  One might have imagined that she had enjoyed a calm life, but this was far from being the case.  The daughter of a country solicitor, she married early—­for love, and the issue was disastrous.  Above her right temple, just at the roots of the hair, a scar was discoverable; it was the memento of an occasion on which her husband aimed a blow at her with a mantelpiece ornament, and came within an ace of murder.  Intimates of the household said that the provocation was great—­that Mrs. Lessingham’s gift of sarcasm had that morning