"I shall never run away again, Jane," Cecil promises, with solemnity. "But I didn't mean to slip. Something spilled out below and the tree went down, and Miss Violet was there. Maybe I should not have found her if I hadn't fallen."
"Is she pretty?" inquires Jane.
"Oh, she is beautiful! ever so much handsomer than madame."
"I don't think any one can be handsomer than madame," says Jane.
"Now I can go to papa." And Cecil opens his door softly. "O papa, my hair is all curled," she cries, eagerly, "and——"
Has he a rival already in the child's heart? the child so hard to win! A curious pang pierces him for a moment. If Miss St. Vincent can gain hearts so easily, Eugene had better see her, he decides.
The affair is talked of somewhat at the breakfast-table. Floyd Grandon takes it quietly. Mrs. Grandon reads Cecil a rather sharp lecture, and the child relapses into silence. Madame Lepelletier considers it injudicious to make a heroine of Cecil, and seconds her father's efforts to pass lightly over it. A girl who plays with a doll need fill no one with anxiety.
So Mr. Grandon drives his little daughter over to the eyrie just in time to catch Lindmeyer, who is still positive and deeply interested.
"I shall get back as soon as I can next week," he says, "and then I want to go in the factory at once. I shall be tremendously mistaken if I do not make it work."
There is a curious touch of shyness about Violet this morning that is enchanting. She carries off Cecil at once. There sits the lovely doll in a rocking-chair, and a trunk of elegant clothes that would win any little girl's heart. Cecil utters an exclamation of joy.