Mrs. Acton’s house was to be the place of rendezvous, and she would take charge of the girls for part of the day, the boys wished to shift for themselves; and Allen and Bobus had friends of their own with whom they meant to lunch.

Clara met her friend with an agitated manner, half-laughing, half-crying, as she said—-

“Well, Mother Carey dear, you haven’t quite soared above us yet?”

“Petrels never take high flights,” said Carey; “I hope and trust that it may prove impossible to make a fine lady of me.  I am caught late, you see.”

“Your daughters are not.  You won’t like to have them making excuses for mamma’s friends.”

“Janet’s exclusiveness will not be of that sort, and for warm-hearted little Babie, trust her.  Do you know where the Ogilvies can be written to, Clara?  Are they at Rome, or Florence?”

“They were to be at Florence by the l4th.  Mary has learnt to be such a traveller, that she always drags her brother abroad for however short a time St. Kenelm may give her.”

“I hope I shall catch her in time.  We want her for our governess.”

“Now, really, Carey, you are a woman for old friends!  But do you think you will get on?  You know she won’t spare you.”

“That’s the very reason I want her.”

“It is very generous of you!  You always were the best little thing in the world, with a strong turn for being under the lash; so you’re going to keep the slave in the back of your triumphal chariot, like the Roman general.”

“I see, you’re afraid she will teach me to be too proper behaved for you.”

“Precisely so, after her experience of Russian countesses.  I don’t know whether she will let you be mistress of your own house.”

“She will make me mistress all the more,” said Caroline; “for she will make me all the more ‘queen o’er myself.’”

Then began the shopping, such shopping extraordinary as none of the family had ever enjoyed except in dreams; and when it was the object of everybody to conceal their purchases from everybody else.  Caroline contrived to make time for a quiet luncheon with Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, to which she took her two youngest boys, since Jock was the godson of the house, and had moreover been shaken off by his two elder brothers.  Happily he was too good-tempered to grumble at being thrown over, and his mind was in a beatific state of contemplation of his newly-purchased treasures, a small pistol, a fifteen-bladed knife, and a box of miscellaneous sweets, although his mother had so far succumbed to the weakness of her sex as to prevent the weapon from being accompanied by any ammunition.

As to Armine, she wanted to consult Dr. Lucas about the fragile looks and liability to cold that had alarmed her ever since Rob’s exploit.  Besides, he was so unlike the others!  Had she not seen him quietly make his way into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Lucas kept a box for the Children’s Hospital, and drop into it two bright florins, one of which she had seen Babie hand over to him?