"Excellent thing, Jeannie," she said. "Can't I persuade you to try? You dear person, I don't know that I will even attempt to. It might have some effect on you, and I don't want anything to have any effect on you. I prefer you exactly as you are. Now I want to make myself quite comfortable, in order that I may enjoy myself as much as possible, and then you shall tell me all that has happened to you this last year.—No, Hendon, you needn't wait up. Yes; plenty of hot water. Go to bed."
"Let me pull the blinds up and open the windows," said Jeannie; "I want to let London in. Ah! Clip-clop! Clip-clop! Girls and boys going to dances, and falling in love with one another, and keeping the world young. God bless them!"
She leant out into the soft warm night a moment, and then turned back into the room again, her face so brimming with happiness and youth that Alice for a moment was almost startled.
"They or something else seems to have kept you young, you dear!" she said. "And now sit down and tell me all about yourself from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot. You are so tall, too, Jeannie; it will take a nice long time."
Jeannie sat down.
"So it is 'me next,' is it, as the children say?" she asked. "Very well, me. Well, once upon a time, dear, a year ago, I was an old woman. I was twenty-nine, if you care to know, but an old woman. For the measure of years is a very bad standard to judge by; it tells you of years only which have practically nothing to do with being old or young. Well, the old woman of twenty-nine went away. And to-day she came back, a year older in respect of years, since she is thirty now, but, oh! ever so much younger, because—— Do you guess at all?"
Lady Nottingham put down her hot water.
"Ah! my dear," she said, "of course I guess. Or rather I don't guess; I know. There is somebody. It is only Somebody who can interfere in our age and our happiness. Who is it?"
"No; guess again," said Jeannie.
But again it was hardly a case of guessing. Lady Nottingham knew quite well who it was, who in those years of Jeannie's married life had been her constant and quiet support and stand-by, and who had found his reward in the knowledge that he helped her to bear what had to be borne.