"I wish he was here now," says Lilian, visibly brightening. "Yes; perhaps they will ask him. But, nurse, do you remember when last I saw Taffy it was at——"
Here she shows such unmistakable symptoms of relapsing into the tearful mood again, that nurse sees the necessity of changing the subject.
"Come, my bairn, let me dress you for dinner," she says, briskly, and presently, after a little more coaxing, she succeeds so well that she sends her little mistress down to the drawing-room, looking her loveliest and her best.
CHAPTER V.
"Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods."
—Thomson.
Next morning, having enjoyed the long and dreamless sleep that belongs to the heart-whole, Lilian runs down to the breakfast-room, with the warm sweet flush of health and youth upon her cheeks. Finding Lady Chetwoode and Cyril already before her, she summons all her grace to her aid and tries to look ashamed of herself.