“Pretty well.  It was very shocking, you know.  Lady Dighton says the best French plays always are.  I cried a little, and I was so ashamed of myself; only I saw some other people crying too, so then I did not mind so much.”

“You did not really see much of Lady Dighton, then, if you were driving all afternoon and at the theatre all evening?”

“Oh! yes; we had a long talk before dinner.  When we came in, she said, ’Now, Maurice, you must just amuse yourself how you can for an hour.  Sir John has English papers to read, and Miss Costello and I are going to my room to have a chat.’  So she took me off to her dressing-room, and we were by ourselves there for quite an hour.”

“In which time, I suppose, you talked about everything in heaven and earth.”

“I don’t know.  No, indeed; I believe we talked most about Maurice.”

“He is a favourite of hers.”

“She says she liked him from the first.  She is so funny in her way of describing things.  She said, ’We English are horribly benighted with regard to you colonists; and my notions of geography are elementary.  When grandpapa told me he had sent for his heir from Canada, I went to Sir John and asked him where Canada was.  He got a big map and began to show me; but all I could understand was, that it was in North America.  I saw an American once.  I suppose I must have seen others, but I remember one particularly, for being an American; he was dreadfully thin and had straight black hair, and a queer little pointed black beard, and I think he spoke through his nose; and really I began to be haunted by a recollection of this man, and to think I was going to have a cousin just like him.’  Then she told me about going over to Hunsdon and finding he had arrived.  She said that before the end of the day they were fast friends.”

“He was not like what she expected, then?”

“Just the opposite.  She made me laugh about that.  She said, ’I like handsome people, and I like an English style of beauty for men.  My poor dear Sir John is not handsome, though he has a good face; but really when a man is good-looking and looks good, I can’t resist him.’”

“You seem to have been much occupied with this question of looks.  Did you spend the whole hour talking about them?”

“Mamma!  Why that was only the beginning.”

“What was the rest, then? or some of it, at least?”

“She told me how good Maurice was to his grandfather, and how fond Mr. Beresford grew of him.  Do you know that Maurice was just going to try to get away to Canada at the very time Mr. Beresford had his last attack?  Lady Dighton says he was excessively anxious to go, and yet he never showed the least impatience or disappointment when he found he could not be spared.”

“He must have felt that he was bound to his grandfather.”

“He nursed him just like a woman, Lady Dighton says, and one could fancy it.  Could not you, mamma?”