"Quite the contrary—I have too many."
"Come—that's a new complaint. Perhaps they are very new friends?" inquired the Baronet.
"Some of them very old, indeed; but I've found that an old friend means only an old person privileged to be impertinent."
Lady Jane uttered a musical little laugh that was very icy as she spoke, and her eye flashed a single insolent glance at old Lady Alice.
At another time perhaps a retort would not have been wanting, but now the old woman's eye returned but a wandering look, and her face expressed nothing but apathy and sadness.
"Grandmamma, dear, I'm afraid you are very much tired," whispered Beatrix when they reached the drawing-room, sitting beside her after she had made her comfortable on a sofa, with cushions to her back; "you would be better lying down, I think."
"No, dear—no, darling. I think in a few minutes I'll go to my room. I'm not very well. I'm tired—very tired."
And poor old granny, who was speaking very gently, and looking very pale and sunken, sighed deeply—it was almost a moan.
Beatrix was growing very much alarmed, and accompanied, or rather assisted, the old lady up to the room, where, aided by her and her maid, she got to her bed in silence, sighing deeply now and then.
She had not been long there when she burst into tears; and after a violent paroxysm she beckoned to Beatrix, and threw her lean old arms about her neck, saying—