"I have no family," she rejoins, simply.
"We Gerards have a particularly happy knack of rubbing each other the wrong way," he says, rather irritably. "I am sometimes tempted to think that we are the most unamiable family God ever put breath into."
"People always think that of their own family," answers Essie, laughing; "they know their own little crookednesses much better than any one else's."
"Has Miss Craven changed her mind, St. John?" asks Miss Blessington from the doorway.
St. John starts. "Not that I know of."
He stoops, and lifts her carefully, as a thing most precious; as he does so, a little foolish trembling passes over her, as a baby-breeze passes over some still pool's breast, hardly troubling the sky and the trees that lie far down in the blue mirror. Down the grand staircase he bears her, and Constance follows to see that there is no loitering by the way.
The morning-room at Felton (so called because the family always sit there in the evenings) is very lofty. You have to crane your neck up to see the stucco stalactites, faintly imitative of Staffa and Iona, pendant from the ceiling. There are statuettes in plenty standing about in niches and on pedestals. Venuses and Minervas and Clyties, all with their hair very elaborately dressed, and not a stitch of clothes on. There is a great litter of papers and magazines on the round table: the Justice of the Peace, that is Sir Thomas's; the Field, that is St. John's; the Cornhill, that is everybody's. Sir Thomas and miladi are playing backgammon; miladi is compelled to do so every night as a penance for her sins—four rubbers, and if he wins, as she prays and endeavours that he may, five.
"Don't take the dice up in such a hurry, miladi," he says, snappishly; "how the deuce can I see what your throw is?"
"Seizes, Sir Thomas," responds miladi, meekly.
"Seizes! don't believe a word of it! much more like seize ace!"