And with a wistful sigh he looked at Stella, the most like the portrait, though none of the sisters really reproduced it; indeed, the peculiar caressing and relying expression could hardly have been brought out, except by a petted shielded life, free from all care or hardness. Wilmet was on a more majestic and commanding scale; something of the darling child expression was in Geraldine, but intellect and illness had changed both the mould and colouring of the features. Robina was of the round-faced, round-eyed type, only refined; Angela like no one but Clement; and even Stella was not only too small, but too thoughtful, to recall that flower-like careless loveliness of Mary Underwood's maiden bloom.
'It was hard on you not to have had these,' said John.
'I suppose,' said Felix, 'that they were done for my uncle, and that my father thought them too valuable to take away.'
'Better so,' said Cherry, quietly.
'Yes,' said Lance; 'to have had these before one's eyes would have made one ready to fly at that man's throat,' glancing at the old squire in uniform.
'And now,' said Cherry, 'they are smiling their greeting to us.'
'You'll turn out the Squire, won't you, Felix?' added Lance. 'You won't keep him here, gloating on his victims?'
'Certainly not, if he suggests such ideas,' said Felix. 'It is Cherry's domain, though, and she must decide whether to banish him.'
'Oh! oh!' screamed Angela, who had meanwhile followed Bernard out of the room. 'Come here, all of you! Felix, we must have a ball! Nature and fate decree it.'
Felix laughed, gave Cherry his arm, and the procession moved on. 'Tripp says this conservatory was glazed for a surprise to my mother while she was on her wedding tour,' said Clement. 'You know this wing is the recent part of the house, built by my old great-uncle, when people had come to have large notions as to drawing and dining rooms. Here's the dining-room, but we shall go in there for severe tea presently. This is the middle period, the Stewart style part,' as they came back into the wainscotted hall, rising to the top of the house, with a staircase opposite to the front-door, and a handsome balustraded gallery running round the first floor.