Lady Connie | Page 5

at the old gabled
house into which it was being carried, as though she were more than
doubtful whether the building would hold the boxes. Yet as houses
went, in the older parts of Oxford, Medburn House, Holywell, was
roomy.
"Annette, don't do any unpacking till after tea!" cried Lady Constance.
"Just get the boxes carried up, and rest a bit. I'll come and help you
later."
The maid said nothing. Her lips seemed tightly compressed. She
stepped into the hall, and spoke peremptorily to the white-capped
parlourmaid who stood bewildered among the trunks.
"Have those boxes--" she pointed to four--two large American
Saratogas, and two smaller trunks--"carried up to her ladyship's room.
The other two can go into mine."
"Miss!" whispered the agitated maid in Nora's ear, "we'll never get any
of those boxes up the top-stairs. And if we put them four into her
ladyship's room, she'll not be able to move."
"I'll come and see to it," said Nora, snatching up a bag. "They've got to
go somewhere!"
Mrs. Hooper repeated that Nora would manage it, and languidly waved
her niece towards the drawing-room. The girl hesitated, laughed, and
finally yielded, seeing that Nora was really in charge. Dr. Hooper led
her in, placed an armchair for her beside the tea-table, and stood closely
observing her.
"You're like your mother," he said, at last, in a low voice; "at least in
some points." The girl turned away abruptly, as though what he said
jarred, and addressed herself to Alice.
"Poor Annette was very sick. It was a vile crossing."

"Oh, the servants will look after her," said Alice indifferently.
"Everybody has to look after Annette!--or she'll know the reason why,"
laughed Lady Constance, removing her black gloves from a very small
and slender hand. She was dressed in deep mourning with crape still
upon her hat and dress, though it was more than a year since her
mother's death. Such mourning was not customary in Oxford, and Alice
Hooper thought it affected.
Mrs. Hooper then made the tea. But the newcomer paid little attention
to the cup placed beside her. Her eyes wandered round the group at the
tea-table, her uncle, a man of originally strong physique, marred now
by the student's stoop, and by weak eyes, tried by years of Greek and
German type; her aunt--
"What a very odd woman Aunt Ellen is!" thought Constance.
For, all the way from the station, Mrs. Hooper had talked about
scarcely anything but her own ailments, and the Oxford climate. "She
told us all about her rheumatisms--and the east winds--and how she
ought to go to Buxton every year--only Uncle Hooper wouldn't take
things seriously. And she never asked us anything at all about our
passage, or our night journey! And there was Annette--as yellow as an
egg--and as _cross_--"
However Dr. Hooper was soon engaged in making up for his wife's
shortcomings. He put his niece through many questions as to the year
which had elapsed since her parent's death; her summer in the high
Alps, and her winter at Cannes.
"I never met your friends--Colonel and Mrs. King. We are not military
in Oxford. But they seem--to judge from their letters--to be very nice
people," said the Professor, his tone, quite unconsciously, suggesting
the slightest shade of patronage.
"Oh, they're dears," said the girl warmly. "They were awfully good to
me."

"Cannes was very gay, I suppose?"
"We saw a great many people in the afternoons. The Kings knew
everybody. But I didn't go out in the evenings."
"You weren't strong enough?"
"I was in mourning," said the girl, looking at him with her large and
brilliant eyes.
"Yes, yes, of course!" murmured the Reader, not quite understanding
why he felt himself a trifle snubbed. He asked a few more questions,
and his niece, who seemed to have no shyness, gave a rapid description,
as she sipped her tea, of the villa at Cannes in which she had passed the
winter months, and of the half dozen families, with whom she and her
friends had been mostly thrown. Alice Hooper was secretly thrilled by
some of the names which dropped out casually. She always read the
accounts in the _Queen_, or the _Sketch_, of "smart society" on the
Riviera, and it was plain to her that Constance had been dreadfully "in
it." It would not apparently have been possible to be more "in it." She
was again conscious of a hot envy of her cousin which made her
unhappy. Also Connie's good looks were becoming more evident. She
had taken off her hat, and all the distinction of her small head, her
slender neck and sloping shoulders, was more visible; her
self-possession, too, the ease and vivacity of her gestures. Her manner
was that of one accustomed to