Here is your cousin Maurice." Lady Dighton turned round and held out her hand.

"I am very glad to see my cousin," she said.

"It was quite time you had somebody to take care of you." She had a gay, careless manner, but her smiling eyes took a tolerably sharp survey of the stranger nevertheless, and she was not ill satisfied with the result.

"He is very good-looking," she said to herself, "and looks _nice_.

Of course he must be very countrified, but we will help him to rub that off." So she took him under her patronage immediately.
She said no more to him, however, at present, but occupied herself with her grandfather, asking a great many questions, and telling him of the places and people she and her husband had seen during their two months' tour.