‘What an observer!’ cried Lucy.  ‘Now then, interpret my dress to-night!’

‘How can you, Lucy!’ muttered the scandalized Sophy.

’Well, Sophy, as you will have him to torment with philosophy this whole evening, I think you might give him a little respite,’ said Lucy, good-humouredly.  ’I want to know what my dress reveals to him!’ and drawing up her head, where two coral pins contrasted with her dark braids, and spreading out her full white skirts and cerise trimmings, she threw her figure into an attitude, and darted a merry challenge from her lively black eyes, while Ulick availed himself of the permission to look critically, and Sophy sank back disgusted.

’Miss Kendal can, when she is inclined, produce as much effect with her beams of the second order as with all her splendours displayed.’

‘Stuff,’ said Lucy.

‘Stuff indeed,’ more sincerely murmured Sophy.

‘Say something in earnest,’ said Lucy.  ’You professed to tell what I thought of the people.’

’I hope you’ll never put on such new white gloves where I’m the party chiefly concerned.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They are a great deal too unexceptionable.’

If there were something coquettish in the manner of these two, it did not give Albinia much concern.  It was in him ‘only Irish;’ and Fred Ferrars had made her believe that it was rather a sign of the absence of love than of its presence.  She saw much more respect and interest in his mischievous attacks on Sophy’s gravity, and though Lucy both pitied him and liked chattering with him, it was all the while under the secret protest that he was only a banker’s clerk.

Sophy was glad of the presence of a third person to obviate the perils of her evenings with grandmamma, and she beheld the trio set off to their dinner-party, without the usual dread of being betrayed into wrangling.  Mr. O’More devoted himself to the old lady’s entertainment, he amused her with droll stories, and played backgammon with her.  Then she composed herself to her knitting, and desired them not to mind her, she liked to hear young people talk cheerfully; whereupon Sophy, by way of light and cheerful conversation, renewed the battle of consistency with a whole broadside of heavy metal.

When the diners-out came home, they found the war raging as hotly as ever; a great many historical facts and wise sayings having been fired off on both sides, and neither having found out that each meant the same thing.

However, the hours had gone imperceptibly past them, which could not be said for the others.  The half-yearly dinners at Mr. Drury’s were Albinia’s dread nearly as much as Mr. Kendal’s aversion.  He was certain, whatever he might intend, to fall into a fit of absence, and she was almost equally sure to hear something unpleasant, and to regret her own reply.  On the whole, however, Mr. Kendal came away on this evening the least dissatisfied,