There was, however, no lack of excitement when the rest of the family came in. The girls dazzled with the quick transition from the darkness outside to the light within, their eyes shining, their lips apart with breathless curiosity and excitement, and a thrill of interest which might have satisfied the requirements of any visitor; and after a little interval their father, pale, and somewhat breathless, too, whose expectation was not of anything agreeable, but rather of some new misfortune, of which perhaps his cousin had come to tell him. Edward Penton did not pause to think that it was very unlikely that Alicia would thus break in upon his retirement in order to tell him of some misfortune. The feeling was instinctive in his mind, because of long acquaintance with defeat and failure, that every new thing must mean further trouble. He was always ready to encounter that in his depressed way. He came into the atmosphere which was tinged with the smell of paraffin, the discomfort of which was habitual to him, added to the undercurrent of irritation in his mind, and with the feeling that there was already a crowd of people in the room, where probably no one was necessary but himself. Alicia Penton had long, long ceased to be an object of special interest to him; nobody now was of particular interest to Mr. Penton in that or any sentimental way. The people who were about him now either belonged to him, in which case they gave him a great deal of altogether inevitable trouble; or else they did not belong to him, and were probably more or less antagonistic—wanting things from him, entertainment, hospitality, subscriptions, something or other which he did not wish to give. Such were the two classes into which the human race was divided; but if there was a debatable ground between the two, a scrap of soil upon which a human foot could be planted. Sir Walter and his daughter were its possible inhabitants. They belonged to him, too—in a way; they were antagonistic, too—in a way. Both the other halves of the world were more or less united in them.

He came forward into the light, which, however, revealed his knickerbockers and muddy boots more distinctly than his face. “It is a long time,” he said, “since we have met.”

“Yes, Edward, it is a long time; I have been saying so to your wife. The girls have grown up since I saw them last; they were little girls then, and now they are—grown up—”

When emotion reaches a high strain and becomes impassioned the power of expression is increased, and eloquence comes; but on the lower levels of feeling, suppressed excitement and commotion of mind often find utterance in the merest commonplace.

“Yes, they are grown up—the boy, too,” said Mr. Penton, under the same spell.

She cast a glance upward to where, beyond the lamp, on his mother’s side of the table, Wat appeared, a lengthy shadow, perhaps the most uncongenial of all. She made a slight forward inclination of her head in recognition of his presence, but no more. The girls she had shown a certain pleasure in. They stood together, with that pretty look of being but one which a pair of sisters often have, so brightly curious and excited, scanning her with such eager eyes that it would have been difficult not to respond to their frank interest. But Mrs. Penton could not tolerate Wat; his very presence was an offense to her, and the instinctive way in which he went over to his mother’s side, and stood there in the gloom looking at the visitor over the shade of the lamp. She would have none of him, but she turned with relief to the girls.

“I am ashamed to ask the question,” she said, “but which of you is my godchild? You seem about the same age.”

It was a vexation that it should be the other one—the one who was like her mother, not the impetuous darker girl whose eyes devoured the great lady who was her cousin—who replied, “It is I who am Ally. There is only a year between us. We are more together than any of the others.”

“Ally?” said Mrs. Russell Penton, with a little scorn. “And what is your name?”

“I am Anne.”

“She should be Anna,” said her mother, “which is far prettier; but she likes what is shortest best. There are so many of them. None of them have their full names. Some families make a great stand on that—to give every one their full name.”

“It is a matter of taste,” said the visitor, coldly.

She was doubly, but most unreasonably, annoyed after her first moment of interest to find that it was the wrong sister who was her godchild, and that even she did not bear the name that had been given her. It seemed a want of respect, not only to herself, but to the family, in which there had been Alicias for countless years.

“I hope my uncle is well?” said Mr. Penton, after another embarrassed pause. Sir Walter was not his uncle, but it was a relic of the old days, when he was a child of the house, that the younger cousin was permitted to call the elder so. “I heard you were not going away this year.”

“No; the doctors think he may stay at home, as there is every prospect of a mild winter. Of course, if it became suddenly severe we could take him away at a moment’s notice.”

“Of course,” Edward Penton said. However severe the weather might become neither he nor his could be taken away at a moment’s notice. He could not help feeling conscious of the difference, but with a faint smile breaking upon his depression. Alicia did not mean it, he was sure, but it seemed curious that she should put the contrast so very clearly before him. There was a little whispering going on between the mother and daughters about the tea. Tea was a substantial meal at the Hook, and the little ornamental repast at five o’clock was unusual, and made a little flurry in the household. Mrs. Penton had to give Anne certain instructions about a little thin bread-and-butter and the cake. She thought that Edward, who was keeping up the conversation, screened off these whisperings from his cousin’s notice; but as a matter of fact Alicia was keenly alive to all that was taking place, and felt a sharper interest in the anxiety about Martha’s appearance than in anything Edward was saying. “You still keep the villa at Cannes?” he went on.

“Yes; up to this time it has been a necessity for my father; but I have not seen him so well for years.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” Mr. Penton said, with a little emphasis. He had to stand aside as he spoke, for Martha arrived, rather embarrassed, with her tray, for which there was no habitual place; and the girls had to clear the books and ornaments off a little table while she waited. He was used to these domestic embarrassments, and it must be said for him that he did the best he could to screen them even at the sacrifice of himself. He drew a chair near to his cousin and sat down, thus doing what he could to draw her keen attention from these details. “It is long since I have seen Penton,” he said. “I hear you have made many improvements.”

“Nothing that you would remark—only additions to the comfort of the house. It used to be rather cold, you will remember.”

“I don’t think I knew what cold was in those old days,” he said, with a slight involuntary shiver, for the door had just opened once more to admit the cake, and a draught came in from the always open hall.

“We have had it now warmed throughout,” said Mrs. Russell Penton, with a slight momentary smile; “and we are thinking of fitting it up with the electric light. My husband has a turn for playing with science. It is a great deal of trouble at first, but very little afterward, I believe: and very convenient, without any of the drawbacks of lamps or gas.”

She could not but turn her head as she spoke, to the large crystal lamp upon the table, which filled the room with something more than light. The tea had been arranged by this time, and poor Mrs. Penton had begun to pour it out, but not yet was her mind disengaged from the many anxieties involved—for the tea was poor. She shook her head and made a little silent appeal to the girls as she poured out the first almost colorless cup. And then there was a jug of milk, but no cream. This necessitated another whispering, and the swift dispatch of Ally to fetch what was wanted. Mrs. Russell Penton looked on at all this, and took in every detail as if it had been a little scene of a comedy enacted for her amusement; but there was in the amusement an acrid touch. The smile was sharp, like Ithuriel’s spear, and cut all those innocent little cobwebs away.

“I have no doubt you will make it very complete,” Edward Penton said, with a sigh. There was an assumed proprietorship about all she said, which was like cutting him off from the succession, that only possibility which lay in his future. And yet they could not cut him off, he said, to himself.

“Is this tea for me? How very kind! but I never take it at this hour,” said Alicia, putting up her gloved hand with a little gesture of refusal. It smote, if not her heart, yet her conscience, a little to see the look that passed between the mother and the girls. Had Russell seen that scene he would assuredly have retired into a corner, and relieved himself with a whistle, before asking for a cup and eating half the cake, which was what he would have done regardless of consequences. Rendered compunctious by this thought, Alicia added, hastily, “You must bring the girls up to see the house; they ought to know it; and I hope I may see more of them in the time to come.”

“Their mother, I have no doubt, will be pleased,” said Edward Penton, vaguely.

“Indeed, you must not think of me,” his wife said; she had not taken offense. It was not in her mild nature to suppose that any one could mean to slight or insult her; but she was a little annoyed by the unnecessary waste of tea. “I am a poor walker, you know, Edward; and always occupied with the children; but I am sure the girls would like it very much. It would be very nice for them to make acquaintance—Wat could walk up with them if you were busy. Especially in the winter,” she said, with a little conciliatory smile toward the great lady, “I am always looking out for a little change for the girls.”

“Then we shall consider that as settled,” said Alicia. She rose, in all the splendor of her velvet and furs, and the whole family rose with her. A thought ran through their minds—a little astonished shock—a question, Was it possible that this was all she had come for? It was a very inadequate conclusion to the excitement and expectation in all their minds. Mrs. Penton alone did not feel this shock. She did not think the result inadequate; a renewal of acquaintance, an invitation to the girls, probably the opening to them of a door into society and the great world. She came forward with what to her was warmth and enthusiasm. “It is very kind of you to have called,” she said, “I am truly grateful, for I make few calls myself, and I can’t wonder if I fall out of people’s recollection. It is a great thing for a woman like you to come out of your way to be kind to Edward’s little girls. I am very grateful to you, and I will never forget it.” Poor Mrs. Penton gave her rich namesake a warm pressure of the hand, looking at her with her mild, large-lidded gray eyes, lit up by a smile which transformed her face. Not a shadow of doubt, not the faintest cloud of consciousness that Alicia’s motive had been less than angelic, was in her look or in her thoughts.

Rich Mrs. Penton faltered and shrunk before this look of gratitude. She knew that, far from deserving it, there had been nothing but contempt in her thoughts toward this simple woman who had been to her like a bit of a comedy. She withdrew her hand as quickly as possible from that grateful clasp.

“You give me credit—that I don’t deserve,” she said. “I—I came to speak to my cousin on business. It was really a—I won’t call it a selfish motive, that brought me. But it will give me real pleasure to see the girls.”

To divine the hidden meaning of this little speech, which was entirely apologetic, occupied the attention of the anxious family suddenly pushed back into eagerness again by the intimation of her real errand. It was not all for nothing, then! It was not a mere call of civility! Mr. Penton, who had felt something like relief when she rose, consoled by the thought that there could not at least be any new misfortune to intimate to him, fell again into that state of melancholy anticipation from which he had been roused, while the young ones bounded upward to the height of expectation. Something was coming—something new! It did not much matter to them what it was. They looked on with great excitement while their father conducted his cousin across the hall to his book-room, as it was called. They were not given to fine names at Penton Hook. It had been called the library in former days. But it was a little out at elbows, like the rest of the house—the damp had affected the bindings, the gilding was tarnished, the russia leather dropping to pieces, a smell of mustiness and decay, much contended against, yet indestructible, was in the place. And it was no longer the library, but only the book-room. The door of the drawing-room being left open, the family watched with interest indescribable the two figures crossing the hall. Mrs. Russell Penton, though she had not been there for so many years, knew her way, which particular interested the girls greatly, and opened a new vista to them, into the past. Mrs. Penton, for her part, knew well enough all about Alicia, but she was not jealous. She shivered slightly as she saw the great lady’s skirt sweep the hall.

“Oh, Anne,” she whispered, “tell Martha to bring a cloth and wipe it. A velvet dress! You children, with your wet feet, you are enough to break any one’s heart. What are the mats put there for, I should like to know?”

“Oh, what do you think of her, mother? Did you like her? Don’t you think she meant to be kind? Do you think we must go?”

“Certainly you must go,” said Mrs. Penton. “What do I think of her? This is not the first time I have seen Alicia Penton, that you should ask me such a question. Yes, yes, you must go. You ought to know that house better than any house in the country, and it is only right that you should first go into society there.”

“Do you think Cousin Alicia will ask us to parties? Do you think she really meant—really, without thinking of anything else—to be kind to Ally and me?”

“Anne, I am sorry that you should take such notions. What object could she have but kindness?” said Mrs. Penton, with mild conviction, “for coming here? It is all very well to talk of business with your father. Yes, no doubt she has business with your father, or she would not have said so; but I am very sure she must have suffered from the estrangement. I always thought she must suffer. Men do not think of these things, but women do. I feel sure that she has talked her father over at last, and that we are all to be friends again. Sir Walter is an old man; he must want to make up differences. What a dreadful thing it would be to die without making it up!”

“Was there any real quarrel?” said Wat, coming forward with his hands in his pockets. “She may be kind enough, mother, that fine lady of yours, but she does not like me.”

“How can she know whether she likes you or not? She doesn’t know you, Wat.”

“She hates me, all the same. I have never done anything to her that I know of. I suppose I did wrong to be born.”

“If it were not you it would be some one else,” said Mrs. Penton; “but, children! oh, don’t talk in this hard way. Think how her brothers died, and that she has no children. And the house she loves to go away from her, and nothing to be hers! I do not think I could bear it if it was me. Make haste, Anne, oh, make haste, and get Martha to wipe up the hall. And, Horry, you may as well have the thin bread and butter. If I had only known that Mrs. Russell Penton never took tea—”

About this failure Mrs. Penton was really concerned; it was not only a waste of the tea and of that nice bread and butter (which Horry enjoyed exceedingly), but it was a sort of a sham, enacted solely for the benefit of the visitor, which was objectionable in other points of view besides that of extravagance. It gave her a sense of humiliation as if she had been masquerading in order to deceive a stranger who was too quick of wit to be deceived. But Mrs. Penton neither judged her namesake, nor was suspicious of her, nor was she even very curious as the children were, as to the subject of the interview which was going on in the book-room. She feared nothing from it, nor did she expect anything. She was not ready to imagine that anything could happen. Sir Walter might die, of course, and that would make a change; but she had Mrs. Russell Penton’s word for it that Sir Walter was better than usual; and in the depth of her experience of that routine of common life which kept on getting a little worse, but had never been broken by any surprising incidents, she had little faith in things happening. She felt even that she would not be surprised for her part if Sir Walter should never die. He was eighty-five, and he might live to be a hundred. Though they had not met for years she saw nothing extraordinary in the fact that Alicia Penton had come to talk over some business matters with her cousin. It was partly indolence of mind and partly because she had so much that it was real to occupy her that she had no time for imaginary cases. And so while the girls hung about the doors in excitement unable to settle to anything, curious to see their great relation pass out again, and to watch her getting into her carriage, and pick up any information that might be attainable about the object of her mission, Mrs. Penton with a word of rebuke to their curiosity, took Horry upstairs to the nursery and thence retired to her own room to make her modest little toilet for the evening. There was no dinner to dress for, but the mother of the household thought it was a good thing as a rule and example that she should put on a different gown for tea.