She blushes again as she says this, and regards her hostess with an air of such thorough good faith as wins that lady's liking on the spot.
"You are right," says Cyril, laughing; "she is young. She is never to grow old, because her 'boys,' as she calls us, object to old women. You may have heard of 'perennial spring;' well, that is another name for my mother. But you must not tell her so, because she is horribly conceited, and would lead us an awful life if we didn't keep her down."
"Cyril, my dear!" says Lady Chetwoode, laughing, which is about the heaviest reproof she ever delivers.
All this time, her breakfast being finished, Lilian has been carefully and industriously breaking up all the bread left upon her plate, until now quite a small pyramid stands in the centre of it.
Cyril, having secretly crumbled some of his, now, stooping forward, places it upon the top of her hillock.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you intend doing with it," he says, "but, as I am convinced you have some grand project in view, I feel a mean desire to be associated with it in some way by having a finger in the pie. Is it for a pie? I am dying of vulgar curiosity."
"I!"—with a little shocked start; "it doesn't matter, I—I quite forgot. I——"
She presses her hand nervously down upon the top of her goodly pile, and suppresses the gay little erection until it lies prostrate on her plate, where even then it makes a very fair show.
"You meant it for something, my dear, did you not?" asks Lady Chetwoode, kindly.
"Yes, for the birds," says the girl, turning upon her two great earnest eyes that shine like stars through regretful tears. "At home I used to collect all the broken bread for them every morning. And they grew so fond of me, the very robins used to come and perch upon my shoulders and eat little bits from my lips. There was no one to frighten them. There was only me, and I loved them. When I knew I must leave the Park,"—a sorrowful quiver making her voice sad,—"I determined to break my going gently to them, and at first I only fed them every second day,—in person,—and then only every third day, and at last only once a week, until"—in a low tone—"they forgot me altogether."