The dinners at Beckley Court had hitherto been rather languid to those who were not intriguing or mixing young love with the repast.  Miss Current was an admirable neutral, sent, as the Countess fervently believed, by Providence.  Till now the Countess had drawn upon her own resources to amuse the company, and she had been obliged to restrain herself from doing it with that unctuous feeling for rank which warmed her Portuguese sketches in low society and among her sisters.  She retired before Miss Current and formed audience, glad of a relief to her inventive labour.  While Miss Current and her ephemerals lightly skimmed the surface of human life, the Countess worked in the depths.  Vanities, passions, prejudices beneath the surface, gave her full employment.  How naturally poor Juliana Bonner was moved to mistake Evan’s compassion for a stronger sentiment!  The Countess eagerly assisted Providence to shuffle the company into their proper places.  Harry Jocelyn was moodily happy, but good; greatly improved in the eyes of his grandmama Bonner, who attributed the change to the Countess, and partly forgave her the sinful consent to the conditions of her love-match with the foreign Count, which his penitent wife had privately confessed to that strict Churchwoman.

‘Thank Heaven that you have no children,’ Mrs. Bonner had said; and the Countess humbly replied: 

‘It is indeed my remorseful consolation!’

‘Who knows that it is not your punishment?’ added Mrs. Bonner; the Countess weeping.

She went and attended morning prayers in Mrs. Bonner’s apartments, alone with the old lady.  ‘To make up for lost time in Catholic Portugal!’ she explained it to the household.

On the morning after Miss Current had come to shape the party, most of the inmates of Beckley Court being at breakfast, Rose gave a lead to the conversation.

’Aunt Bel!  I want to ask you something.  We’ve been making bets about you.  Now, answer honestly, we’re all friends.  Why did you refuse all your offers?’

‘Quite simple, child,’ replied the unabashed ex-beauty.

‘A matter of taste.  I liked twenty shillings better than a sovereign.’

Rose looked puzzled, but the men laughed, and Rose exclaimed: 

’Now I see!  How stupid I am!  You mean, you may have friends when you are not married.  Well, I think that’s the wisest, after all.  You don’t lose them, do you?  Pray, Mr. Evan, are you thinking Aunt Bel might still alter her mind for somebody, if she knew his value?’

‘I was presuming to hope there might be a place vacant among the twenty,’ said Evan, slightly bowing to both.  ‘Am I pardoned?’

‘I like you!’ returned Aunt Bel, nodding at him.  ’Where do you come from?  A young man who’ll let himself go for small coin’s a jewel worth knowing.’

‘Where do I come from?’ drawled Laxley, who had been tapping an egg with a dreary expression.