“I came to see if there was anything you wanted,” said Lilias, regarding Esmeralda with a frank admiration: she looked still more lovely in her evening dress.
Esmeralda looked round the room with a smile.
“Does it look as if there was anything I could possibly want that isn’t here?” she asked. “There is everything. Is it time to go down yet? I don’t feel as if I could ever leave these beautiful rooms and that view.”
“I am very glad you are pleased,” said Lilias. “We want you to be very happy while you are here, and I hope you will be, Miss Chetwynde.”
“Then don’t call me ‘Miss Chetwynde,’” said Esmeralda.
Lady Lilias blushed with pleasure.
“I will call you Esmeralda, dear,” she said, yielding up her heart at once; “and you will call me Lilias? I hope we shall be great friends; indeed, I feel as if I had known you for a long time; Trafford’s letter told me so much about you. But I did not expect to see—”
Esmeralda smiled, and knit her brows.
“What did you think I was like?” she asked.
“I knew that you must be very nice,” said Lilias, “or Trafford would not have— But I did not know that you were so young and so pretty.”