"Ah! I remember. Well, she is a lovely bit of china, but I can't endure her."
"You are jealous," I say, looking at her proudly.
"Oh, no?" she says, laughing, and in her voice there is the ungrudging admiration that one very pretty woman can always afford to give another: it is only your half-and-half beauties who deny the existence of anything comely in their fair neighbours—"but somehow I can't like her. There is something so silent, so secret about her, one never feels sure of what she is up to."
"And she is engaged to this Sir George Vestris?"
Alice shrugs her shoulders. "They are inseparable, they behave like engaged lovers; she takes no notice of any other man, and he is quite in earnest; but she, I believe, is amusing herself. Milly is considerably scandalized, Fleming mère shakes her head, and says nothing, the young woman keeps her own counsel, and we are all in the dark."
"I wish she was married to him," I say, heartily.
"Do you, indeed?" says Alice. "May I ask, Nell, if you have any intentions on any one who admires her?"
"No intentions," I say, turning my head away that she may not see how red my face has grown, "but I think she is dangerous—a man-trap!—and the sooner matrimony locks her up the better."
"I must go," says Alice, jumping up, as the sound of a distant bell comes to our ears. "Come into my room on your way downstairs, dear—it is the next but one on the right—and I will take you into the nursery to show you baby."
"Wait a moment," say, running after her. "I never was a gusher, you know, Alice; but oh, I am so glad to see your pretty face again!"
I put on my white silk gown, and twist a string of dim moon-shiny pearls among my brown locks; I clasp about my throat and neck mother's pearl necklace and bracelets, and when all is done
