"My doll is not as large as yours," she confesses, "but I will let you play with it. Can't you bring yours, too, and then we will each have one. You are going to live always at papa's house, you know, and you can tell me stories. Jane said I would have to learn lessons, will I?"
"Oh, I should so like to teach you," says Violet, flushing.
"But you must not scold me! Papa never lets any one scold me," she announces, with a positive air.
"I never should," and Violet wipes away some tears. "I shall always love you."
"Oh, don't cry!" Cecil is deeply moved now, and her own lovely eyes fill. Grandon winks his hard and turns his face aside. They are two children comforting one another.
Violet is quite amazed as they drive around the wide sweep of gravelled way. Floyd hands her out. "This is your home henceforth," he says. "You and Cecil are the two treasures I have brought to it, and I hope neither of you will take wings and fly away. I shall look for you both to make me very happy."
He has touched the right chord. She glances up and smiles, and is transfigured in spite of the dismal mourning gear. If she can do anything for him! If the benefits will not always lie on his side!
He takes her straight through to the elegant drawing-room. She shall be paid the honors in her own proper sphere. While he is waiting he unties the ugly little bonnet and takes her out of her crape shroud, as it looks to him.
"Mrs. Grandon has gone out to drive," announces Mary, who has been instructed to say just this, without a bit of apology.
Gertrude stands in the doorway. She nearly always wears long white woollen wrappers that cling to her figure and trail on the ground, and intensify the appearance of attenuation. A pale lavender Shetland shawl is wrapped about her. She has had quite a discussion with her mother, in which she had evinced unwonted spirit. Floyd has been good to them, and it will be dreadfully ungenerous to begin by treating his wife badly.