"Why, daddy!" cries Lizzie, in a tone of disappointment, "you are not going away!"
"I must, my dear. Read this letter. I only received it this morning."
It is a letter from Con Staveley, desiring him to be at the office in London by a certain time, to talk over the new scheme of discretionary investments.
"How provoking!" exclaims Lizzie. "But it can't be helped, I suppose. You don't think it strange, do you?"
"I see nothing strange in it, my dear; it is a matter of business."
Lizzie gives him a queer look, and says again she supposes it can't be helped.
"Be home as soon as you can, daddy," she calls after him, as he goes out of the house.
Whatever reflections Lizzie indulges in after his departure are lost for the time in the pleasure she feels in Lily's arrival. Lily is not alone; Pollypod accompanies her.
"Grandfather did not like me to come by myself," she says to Lizzie, "so I thought I would bring little Polly with me, Polly and I are great friends."
Pollypod nods solemnly, and, after her usual fashion with new acquaintances, gazes in silence at Lizzie for a few seconds, and then, having made up her mind, raises her face to be kissed, and says, with the air of an oracle,