Did he give you news of Miss Doran's health ?" "No." He smiled mysteriously, only to appear at his ease; and Madeline, smiling also, turned away.
Cecily reappeared this evening at the dinner-table.

She was changed; Mrs.Gluck and her guests were not again to behold the vision to which their eyes had become accustomed; that supremacy of simple charm which some of them had recognized as English girlhood at its best, had given place to something less intelligible, less instant in its attractiveness.

Perhaps the climate of Naples was proving not well suited to her.
After dinner, she and Mrs.Lessingham at once went to their private room.

Cecily sat down to write a letter.

When she moved, as if the letter were finished, her aunt looked up from a newspaper.
"I've been thinking, Cecily.