Milly sprang to her feet, flushed with excitement.
'It must be papa!' she cried joyfully.
'Lor', no, miss; don't you go to excite yourself like that. It isn't your pa; it's a younger gentleman.'
She handed Milly a card.
'Mr. Stormont!' the girl exclaimed, with a disappointed air; 'my cousin Julian. I am coming to him, of course, Sarah. But I wish you had given me the card at once.'
'Won't you go and do somethink to your hair, miss? most young ladies do.'
'O yes, I know; there are girls who would stop to have their hair done in Grecian plaits, if the dearest friend they had in the world was waiting for them in the drawing-room. My hair will do well enough, Sarah.—Come, Mary, you'll come to the house with me, won't you?'
'Lor', miss, here comes the gentleman,' said Sarah; and then decamped by an obscure side-path.
'I had better leave you to see him alone, Milly,' I said; but she told me imperatively to stay, and I stayed.
She went a little way to meet the gentleman, who seemed pleased to see her, but whom she received rather coldly, as I thought. But I had not long to think about it, before she had brought him to the summer-house, and introduced him to me.