much of Lady Arpington and of old Mr. Woodseer; and, though she reserved
a smile, there was no look of a lock on her face. She seemed pleased to
be treated very courteously; she returned the stately politeness in
exactest measure; very simply, as well. Her face had now an air of
homeliness, well suited to an English household interior. She could
chat. Any pauses occurring, he was the one guilty of them; she did not
allow them to be barrier chasms, or 'strids' for the leap with effort;
she crossed them like the mountain maid over a gorge's plank--kept her
tones perfectly. Her Madge and Mr. Gower Woodseer made a conversible
topic. She was inquisitive for accounts of Spanish history and the land
of Spain.

They passed into the drawing-room. She had heard of the fate of the poor
child in Wales, she said, without a comment.

'I see now, I ought to have backed your proposal,' he confessed, and was
near on shivering. She kept silent, proudly or regretfully.

Open on her workbasket was a Spanish guide-book and a map attached to it.
She listened to descriptions of Cadiz, Malaga, Seville, Granada. Her
curiosity was chiefly for detailed accounts of Catalonia and the
Pyrenees.

'Hardly the place for you; there's a perpetual heaving of Carlism in
those mountains; your own are quieter for travellers,' he remarked; and
for a moment her lips moved to some likeness of a smile; a dimple in a
flowing thought.

He remarked the come and go of it.