“Has he gone?” she asked, in conspiratorial accents. “May I come in?”

His eyes lit with amusement, but he replied with due gravity: “Yes, but take care you are unobserved!”

She twinkled responsively. “I like you the best of all my family,” she confided, coming across the room to the chair lately occupied by Wimmering.

“Thank you!”

“Not that that’s saying much,” she added reflectively, “for I don’t count aunts and uncles and cousins. So there are now only four of us. And to tell you the truth, Adam, I only loved Papa in-, a dutiful way, and Stephen not at all! Of course, I might have loved Maria, if she hadn’t died before I was born, but I don’t think I should have, because from what Mama tells us she was the most odious child!”

“Lydia, Mama never said such a thing!” protested Adam.

“No, exactly the reverse! She says Maria was too good for this world, so you see what I mean, don’t you?”

He could not deny it, but suggested, with a quivering lip, that Maria, had she been spared beyond her sixth year, might have outgrown her oppressive virtue. Lydia agreed to this, though doubtfully, observing that Charlotte was very virtuous too. “And I am most sincerely attached to Charlotte,” she assured him.

“To Mama also, surely!”

“Of course: that is obligatory!” she answered, with dignity.

He was taken aback, but after eyeing her for a moment he prudently refrained from comment. He was not very well-acquainted with her, for she was nine years younger than he; and although, during his weary convalescence, she had frequently diverted him with her youthful opinions, her visits to his sick-bed had been restricted by the exigencies of education. Miss Keckwick, a governess of uncertain age and severe aspect, had rarely failed to summon Lydia from her brother’s room at the end of half-an-hour, either for an Italian lesson, or for an hour’s practise on the harp. The fruits of her painstaking diligence had not so far been made apparent to Adam, for although there was a good deal of intelligence in his sister’s lively face she had as yet vouchsafed no sign of the erudition to be expected in one educated by so highly qualified a preceptress as Miss Keckwick.