“Giovanni Battista Allamiraviglia.”
Cecilia repeated after him the long, musical name, without missing a syllable, and with a certain approving inflection which evidently had an ingratiating effect upon the many-syllabled aristocrat; for he lifted his carefully gloved hand and passed it gently over the little head.
The child took the caress very naturally, and when, presently, the hand returned to the knee, she got possession of it, and began crossing the kid fingers one over the other, quite undisturbed by the fact that they invariably fell apart again as soon as she loosed her hold.
At this juncture the two eavesdroppers moved discreetly away, and Blythe, leaving her fellow-conspirator far behind, flew to her mother’s side, crying:
“O Mumsey! She’s simply winding him round her finger, and there’s nothing he won’t be ready to do for us now!” 52
“Yes, dear; I’m delighted to hear it,” Mrs. Halliday replied, with what Blythe was wont to call her “benignant and amused” expression. “And after a while you will tell me what you are talking about!”
But Blythe, nothing daunted, only appealed to Mr. Grey, who had just caught up with her.
“You agree with me, Mr. Grey; don’t you?” she insisted.
“Perfectly, and in every particular. Mrs. Halliday, your daughter and I have been eavesdropping, and we have come to confess.”
Whereupon Blythe dropped upon the foot of her mother’s chair, Mr. Grey established himself in the chair adjoining, and they gave their somewhat bewildered auditor the benefit of a few facts.