'She's coming again if father doesn't need her.'
'There's a whole big dinner-party needing her, so you needn't think she can come twice to say good-night to a Jumping-Jack like you.'
'You ought to say a Jumping-Jill,' amended Sara.
During this interchange Master Cecil was complaining to the visitor—
'I can't see you with that thing all round your head.'
'Yes, take it off!' his sister agreed; and when the lady had unwound her lace scarf—'Now the coat! And you have to sit on my bed this time. It's my turn.'
As the visitor divested herself of the long ermine-lined garment, 'Oh, you are pretty to-night!' observed the gallant young gentleman over the way, seeming not to have heard that these effects don't appeal to little boys.
Sara silently craned her neck. Even the high and mighty Mrs. Dampney, in the surreptitious way of the superior servant, without seeming to look, was covertly taking in the vision that the cloak had hitherto obscured. The little girl followed with critical eyes the movement of the tall figure, the graceful fall of the clinging black lace gown embroidered in yellow irises, the easy bend of the small waist in its jewelled belt of yellow. The growing approval in the little face culminated in an ecstatic 'Oh-h-h! let me see what's on your neck! That's new, isn't it?'
'No—very old.'
'I didn't know there were yellow diamonds,' said Sara.