fluttered and excited, and turning it over and over in her hand,
looked at Innocent with a kind of nervous anxiety.

"I think we ought to go, my dear," she said--"or rather--I don't
know about myself--but YOU ought to go certainly. It's a great
house--a great family--and she is a very great lady--a little--
well!--a little 'modern' perhaps--"

Innocent lifted her eyebrows with a slight, almost weary smile. A
scarcely perceptible change had come over her of late--a change
too subtle to be noticed by anyone who was not as keenly observant
as Miss Lavinia--but it was sufficient to give the old lady who
loved her cause for a suspicion of trouble.

"What is it to be modern?" she asked--"In your sense, I mean? I
know what is called 'modern' generally--bad art, bad literature,
bad manners and bad taste! But what do YOU call modern?"

Miss Leigh considered--looking at the girl with steadfast, kindly
eyes.

"You speak a trifle bitterly--for YOU, dear child!" she said--
"These things you name as 'modern' truly are so, but they are
ancient as well! The world has altered very little, I think. What
we call 'bad' has always existed as badness--it is only presented
to us in different forms--"

Innocent laughed--a soft little laugh of tenderness.

"Wise godmother!" she said, playfully--"You talk like a book!"