“And it’s plain to be seen a good household fairy whisked the castle here from Sanford, Ruffle puss, and all,” Leila declared with an enthusiastic touch of brogue and a fond dive at Ruffle. “The top of the afternoon to you, Ruffle Claws.” She swept down upon Ruffle, gathering him, struggling, into her arms.
“Now, now, now, is this the way to behave? I see you have the same old claws. Have you no welcome, then, for Irish Leila?”
“Nu-u-u.” Ruffle accompanied his loud protest with a wild scramble out of Leila’s prisoning arms. He sprang for his chair, regaining it, and spreading out in it with an air of lofty defiance.
“Never mind. I shall charm you yet with catnip and cunning blarney.” Leila shook her finger at the Angora. “This is the room I loved best at Castle Dean,” she said to Marjorie. “What good fortune to find it again here.”
“We all felt the same about it. Since General and Captain were to make their home ours, and ours, theirs, the four of us got together and decided that we’d better transplant our living room to Hamilton Estates. It forms a link, somehow, between Sanford and here. So many wonderful things have happened in this dear comfy room. You never saw it before, Leslie, but you’ll soon become well acquainted with it.”
Thoughtfulness prompted Marjorie to add this last to her cheery explanation. Despite the fact that she was now on the friendliest of terms with the girls she had once despised, at times Leslie still showed signs of awkward embarrassment when among them.
“I love it already.” The oddly somber look, which had briefly touched Leslie’s dark features, vanished. “It’s the most home-like room I’ve ever stepped into. I’m home-hungry, you know,” she confessed. “I’m going to make a bang-up, homey home for my father at Carden Hedge.”
“We shall all be going there to see you, lucky Leslie. It is only poor Midget and I who have no home. Oh, wurra, wurra!” Leila wailed the last two words soulfully.
“Plenty of noise, but no tears,” Vera commented slyly.
“She knows me,” Leila turned an indicative thumb toward Vera. “Or, it may be she thinks she knows. It is all the same.”