"Yes, I have never been able to stand since."
"How dreadful!" Villiers said under his breath. "But you will soon be better, don't you think?"
"No, I think not. It is years ago now. I've nearly forgotten what it was like to be able to run about; I was just as old then as Agnes is now. Here they come. Helen is tired, I'm afraid."
Helen was only shy, a feeling from which Clarice was so free that she could not think what ailed her sister. Aymer looked glum; that she could partly understand, though she did not feel the same. But Villiers had so much ease of manner, such a pleasant, genial smile, that Helen was soon herself again, and even Aymer was charmed, prejudiced as he was against his father's family.
Villiers was cordially pressed to stay, and he stayed, nothing loth. He stayed long enough to perceive that neither Aymer nor Helen was as well-educated or as naturally polished as Guy and Clarice; to see Elise and her good farmer husband, and to know that his cousins' lives were by no means either easy or bright, except for the brightness of mutual love, and that shed round her by gentle Clarice's heaven-enlightened heart.
All this Villiers had eyes to see, and he reverenced and admired the poor crippled girl with all the warmth of his young heart. All his life long, Villiers Egerton will be the better for those few days at Ballintra. He wrote to tell his mother of his adventures, and in a short time, he received an answer.
Lady Anne had been so frightened that she had actually put off telling Sir Aymer until some expected visitors had arrived, when, as she said "he could not scold all day."
But he knew now, and Villiers was to go home without an hour's delay. Lady Anne begged him to obey, and mildly wondered how he could be so imprudent! Villiers put on a look which none of his cousins had seen before (he was sitting with Clarice and her small charge), and Clarice asked him what was wrong.
"My grandfather is enraged because I am here, and he orders me home as if I were a groom. But I shan't go until I like."
"Oh, Villiers, how we shall all miss you!"