"You see, Alice," he said, turning to his old friend with a half-smile, "the only rose in my path has a D before it."
"A rose without beauty or fragrance, Eric, which will cease to bloom by to-morrow; waste not a thought upon it."
"You give me strength, Alice."
"I should, else friendship's cords would be weak indeed."
"It is very strange that Mrs. Haughton should keep the man about her, if she is aware it is an annoyance to you," said Vaura indignantly.
"Ah! but they were too sweet for anything, even in poppa's life time," said Blanche with her innocent air. Mrs. Haughton would think it too awfully cruel (just to please the Colonel) to tell him good-bye."
"Heartless in me to suppose for one moment, one's husband's feelings to be of more consideration than those of one's male-friend," said Vaura cynically.
"See, Vaura, the changes," said her god-mother, as the end of the avenue reached the Hall, renovated and partly modernised, burst upon their view.
"Verily, old things have passed away, and all become new," said Vaura.
"Excepting the south wing, dear, which is of sufficiently modern date to have contented Mrs. Haughton; also the north tower which I begged off, only allowing it to be strengthened below."