'Eh, Daisy, mus'n't I? And pray what am I to say to Tom about your shocking behaviour in denying yourself to Mary's brother-in-law? Music lessons have been dangerous things ever since the gamut of Hortensio.'
'May I? He knows!' was Lance's eager question to Gertrude, as he took her hand and looked up mutely, but with lustrous eyes, to the Doctor.
'So you have made it right, children. There, then, Lancelot Underwood, you have got my youngest darling, and I can tell you I never made one of them over with greater confidence and comfort. If we have spoilt our most motherless one, you know what that is, and there's good stuff in her too. Indeed, I never thought so well of the chit before.'
'I'm sure I didn't,' said the chit herself dreamily, causing them both to smile, and Lance to mutter something inarticulately foolish and happy, but the clang of the dinner-bell startled them, and they sprang away to their rooms during the five minutes' law; while Ethel, coming in from the street, met her father in the hall, smiling unutterable things. 'No!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean it! I didn't think she could so soon!'
'I fancy Lance may thank Tom and his great Rupert for that.'
'He did worry her intolerably! Oh! papa, I trust it is no mistake.'
'I think not, Ethel. Once accepted, the warm living outcome of affection cannot fail to be infinitely better than the dream she has been brooding over so long, and as saint-worship it will hurt neither of them. Ah well! I should have liked the other to be one of us, but it was not to be. He was the making of our Daisy, and this one is his equal in all but what age only can give.'
'Ah! I always wished to see Daisy in love,' said Ethel, rather as if the wish had recoiled upon her.
'What's to be done now? There's the Grange carriage,' exclaimed the Doctor.
Yes, Flora, George, and Dickie, all had driven in to lunch at the early dinner, and to face those cheeks whose glow no cold water could moderate, those eyes that shone strangely under downcast lids.