Thus reasoned Mrs. Lushington, according to her lights, scrutinising the couple she had set herself to study, while languidly listening to Lady Mary's conversation, which consisted, indeed, of speculations on the weather in the Channel, mingled with hospitable regrets for the departure of her guest, and the breaking-up of the party, which was to take place on the morrow.
"But ye'll come again next year," said this kind and courteous lady, who, anywhere but in her own house, would have disliked Mrs. Lushington from her heart. "And ye'll bring Miss Douglas with ye—if Miss Douglas she continues to be (with a significant glance at the General, holding, clumsily enough, a skein of much tangled silk). But, annyhow, I'll be lookin' for ye both Punchestown week, if not before, to give us a good long visit, and we'll teach ye to like Ireland, that we will, if kind wishes and a warm welcome can do't."
But even while she spoke, Lady Mary looked anxiously towards the door. Little Ella, a flaxen-haired romp of eleven, had jumped off long ago with a message for sister Norah, but neither having yet returned, the mother's heart ached to think of her handsome darling, smarting, perhaps, even under the mild reproof she had thought it wise to administer, perhaps weeping bitterly, to her little sister's consternation, because of the pain that burns so fiercely in a young unwearied heart—the longing for a happiness that can never be.
Presently, Lady Mary's brow cleared, and she gave a little sigh of relief, for Miss Ella's voice was heard, as usual, chattering loudly in the passage; and that young person, much elated at being still out of bed, came dancing into the room, followed by Norah, from whose countenance all traces of recent emotion had disappeared, and who looked, in her mother's eyes, only the prettier, that she was a shade paler than usual. While the younger child laughed and romped with the company, fighting shy of Lord St. Abbs, but hovering with great glee about papa, and entreating not to be sent upstairs for five more minutes, her sister stole quietly off to a lonely corner, where she subsided into an unoccupied sofa, with the air of being thoroughly fatigued.
Mrs. Lushington, covertly watching Satanella, wondered more and more.
Breaking away from her General, her silks, and her unfinished cup of tea, Miss Douglas walked across the room like a queen, took Norah's head in both hands, kissed her exactly between her eyebrows, and sat down composedly by her side.
A GARDEN OF EDEN