She is bending over the back of Lady Chetwoode's chair, where she cannot be seen, and is tenderly smoothing as much of her pretty gray hair as can be seen beneath the lace cap that adorns her auntie's head.
Sir Guy laughs.
"Ah! I shall never make you a good child, so long as your guardian encourages you in your wickedness," says Lady Chetwoode, smiling too.
"Do I encourage her? Surely that is a libel," says Guy: "she herself will bear me witness how frequently—though vainly—I have reasoned with her on her conduct. I hardly know what is to be done with her, unless——" here he pauses, and looks at Lilian, who declines to meet his glance, but lets her hand slip from Lady Chetwoode's head down to her shoulder, where it rests nervously—"unless I take her myself, and marry her out of hand, before she has time to say 'no.'"
"Perhaps—even did you allow me time—I should not say 'no,'" says Lilian, with astonishing meekness, her face like the heart of a "red, red rose."
Something in her son's eyes, something in Lilian's tone, rouses Lady Chetwoode to comprehension.
"What is it?" she asks, quickly, and with agitation. "Lilian, why do you stand there? Come here, that I may look at you? Can It be possible? Have you two——"
"We have," replies Lilian, interrupting her gently, and suddenly going down on her knees, she places her arms round her. "Are you sorry, auntie? Am I very unworthy? Won't you have me for your daughter after all?"
"Sorry!" says Lady Chetwoode, and, had she spoken volumes, she could not have expressed more unfeigned joy. "And has all your quarreling ended so?" she asks, presently, with an amused laugh.