‘Not like Sally Page? No; she would bewilder the Hiltonbury mind. I mean you to see her; I would not miss the shock to Honor. No, don’t show it to her! I won’t have any preparation.’
‘Do you call that preparation?’ said Owen, coming up, and
taking up the photograph indignantly. ‘You should not do such things, Cilly!’
‘’Tisn’t I that do them—it’s Phœbe’s brother—the one in the sky I mean, Dan Phœbus, and if he won’t flatter, I can’t help it. No, no, I’ll not have it broken; it is an exact likeness of all the children’s spotted frocks, and if it be not of Edna, it ought to be.’
‘Look, Robert,’ said Phœbe, as she saw him standing shy, grave, and monumental, with nervous hands clasped over the back of a chair, neither advancing nor retreating, ‘what a beautiful place this is!’
‘Oh! that’s from a print—Glendalough! I mean to bring you plenty of the real place.’
‘Kathleen’s Cave,’ said the unwelcome millionaire.
‘Yes, with a comment on Kathleen’s awkwardness! I should like to see the hermit who could push me down.’
‘You! You’ll never tread in Kathleen’s steps!’
‘Because I shan’t find a hermit in the cave.’