She tried to suppress the little tremor that always came into her voice when she spoke of her mother’s death.
Quickly, in case the Countess should think it strange, she opened the other letter.
“This one is from Lady Blackstone’s father,” she said, “General Sir Alexander Montgomery Soames.”
She was about to begin, when the Countess exclaimed,
“Good gracious, is he still alive? I knew him many years ago, when he was young and dashing and a great many foolish women broke their hearts over him!”
“He still looks very dashing,” Sandra said without thinking.
“I should imagine,” the Countess remarked dryly, “he is too old to have the roving eye he had in his twenties!”
“I should like to have seen him then,” Sandra said. “In those days London must have been very exciting and very gay.”
“It
