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Laurence loved Paris. It was she who had hinted, in her pretty girlish way, at a speedy installation there, where she knew so many people—friends of her uncle and aunt, acquaintances made during her stay at Seton Park, Wiltshire, and Seton House, Belgravia; her summer cruises on the Phyllis; her short sojourns with Uncle Bob and Aunt Elizabeth at seaside or mountain resorts. Before these she ardently desired to appear in her new Glanz und Pracht, these who had seen her in the character of a dependent—and what a bounty that had been! But what did Basil know about these little secret plans? What indeed! He had found it quite natural for a young girl, full of life and of the joy of life, to want to spend her first married winter in the city of worldly pleasure par excellence. At that moment, however, he began to question the wisdom of his having so readily assented to her wishes. He felt that it might have been better for him to have done otherwise, to have begun by making her thoroughly acquainted with her adopted land, her adopted nationality, her new hereditary dignities and duties. Yes, the welfare of his own people was dear indeed to him, and a flying trip to his chief estate, where she had been greeted and fêted like a young queen, served but little to initiate her to what his life among them, as their suzerain, had really been.