Diana's young
sympathies sprang to meet it, and they were soon in easy conversation.
Sir James questioned her kindly, but discreetly. This was really her
first visit to Brookshire?
"To England!" said Diana; and then, on a little wooing, came out the
girl's first impressions, natural, enthusiastic, gay. Sir James
listened, with eyes half-closed, following every movement of her lips,
every gesture of head and hand.
"Your parents took you abroad quite as a child?"
"I went with my father. My mother died when I was quite small."
Sir James did not speak for a moment. At last he said:
"But before you went abroad, you lived in London?"
"Yes--in Kensington Square."
Sir James made a sudden movement which displaced a book on a little
table beside him. He stooped to pick it up.
"And your father was tired of England?"
Diana hesitated--
"I--I think he had gone through great trouble. He never got over mamma's
death."
"Oh yes, I see," said Sir James, gently. Then, in another tone:
"So you settled on that beautiful coast? I wonder if that was the winter
I first saw Italy?"
He named the year.
"Yes--that was the year," said Diana.
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