"What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth, if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays."
"Well, the mother is dead and gone now, this many a year," says Sir Mark, "and the old fellow went nearly out of his mind when Julia married Beaufort."
"Oh! she is married?" says Portia.
"Dear Portia, didn't I tell you she had children?" says Dulce, reproachfully. "She married an Indian Nabob with an aristocratic name and a lac of rupees, as she believed, but there was a flaw somewhere, and—er—how was it Dicky?"
"Simplest thing out," says Dicky. "He had a lack of rupees, indeed, as she found out when he died. It is only the difference of one letter after all, and that can't count for much."
"Her father, old Charley, left her everything, so she isn't badly off now," says Sir Mark, "but the Nabob was a sell."
"I wonder if Portia will like her," says Dulce, meditatively, laying her elbows on the table and letting her chin sink into her palms.
"Tell me something about her personally," entreats Portia, turning to her with some show of interest.
"What can I tell you? She is pretty in her own way, and she agrees with everyone, and she never means a word she says; and, when she appears most earnest, that is the time not to believe in her; and she is very agreeable as a rule, and she is Fabian's pet aversion."
("Not now," says Portia to herself).