The young people had made a most exquisitely felicitous tour in the South of France and North of Spain, and had come back to a pleasant little house, which had been taken for them near the Park.  There Cecil was bent on giving a great house-warming, a full family party.  He would have everybody, for he had prevailed to have Fordham sleeping there while his room in his own house received its final arrangements; and Caroline had added to Ellen’s load of obligation by asking her and the Colonel to come for a couple of nights to behold their daughter dressed for the Drawing-room.

That would no doubt be a pretty sight, but to others her young matronly dignity was a prettier sight still, as she stood in her soft dainty white, receiving her guests, the rosy colour a little deepened, though she knew and loved them all, and Cecil by her side, already having made a step out of his boyhood by force of adoration and protection.

But their lot was fixed, and they could not be half so interesting to Caroline as the far less beautiful young sister, who could only lay claim to an honest, pleasant, fresh-coloured intelligent face, only prevented by an air of high-breeding from being milkmaid-like.  It was one of those parties when the ingenuity of piercing a puzzle is required to hinder more brothers and sisters from sitting together than could be helped.

So fate or contrivance placed Sydney between the two Johns at the dinner-table, and Mother Carey, on the other side, felt that some indication must surely follow.  Yet Sydney was apparently quite unconscious, and she was like the description in “Rokeby:"—-

“Two lovers by the maiden sate
Without a glance of jealous hate;
The maid her lovers sat between
With open brow and equal mien;
It is a sight but rarely spied,
Thanks to man’s wrath and woman’s pride.”

Were these to awaken?  They seemed to be all three talking together in the most eager and amiable manner, quite like old times, and Jock’s bright face was full of animation.  She had plenty of time for observation, for the Colonel liked a good London dinner, and knew he need not disturb his enjoyment to make talk for “his good little sister.”  Presently, however, he began to tell her that the Goulds and Elvira had really set out for America, and when her attention was free again, she found that Jock had been called in by Fordham to explain to Essie whether she had, or had not, seen Roncesvalles, while Sydney and John were as much engrossed as ever.

So it continued all the rest of the dinner-time.  Jock was talked to by Fordham, but John never once turned to his other neighbour.  In the evening, the party divided, for it was very warm, and rather than inconvenience the lovers of fresh air, Fordham retreated into the inner drawing-room, where there was a fire.  He had asked Babie to bring the old numbers of the “Traveller’s Joy,” as he had a fancy for making a selection of the more