“She is very pretty herself,” said Fay, bluntly.
“Yes, and all things about her should be pretty. This thing, for instance,” as Mildred came bounding into the room, and clambered on her father’s knee. “This is my daughter, Fay, and your playfellow, if you know how to play.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, for they always snubbed us for anything like play,” answered the stranger, “but Mildred shall teach me, if she will.”
She had learnt the child’s name from Mr. Fausset during the drive from Streatham Common to Upper Parchment Street.
Mildred stretched out her little hand to the girl in black with somewhat of a patronising air. She had lived all her little life among bright colours and beautiful objects, in a kind of butterfly world; and she concluded that this pale girl in sombre raiment must needs be poor and unhappy. She looked her prettiest, smiling down at the stranger from her father’s shoulder, where she hung fondly. She looked like a cherub in a picture by Rubens, red-lipped, with eyes of azure, and flaxen hair just touched with gold, and a complexion of dazzling lily and carnation-colour suffused with light.
“I mean to give you my very best doll,” she said.
“You darling, how I shall adore you!” cried the strange girl impulsively, rising from her seat at the tea-table, and clasping Mildred in her arms.
“That is as it should be,” said Fausset, patting Fay’s shoulder affectionately. “Let there be a bond of love between you two.”
“And will you play with me, and learn your lessons with me, and sleep in my room?” asked Mildred coaxingly.
“No, darling. Fay will have a room of her own,” said Mrs. Fausset, replying to the last inquiry. “It is much nicer for girls to have rooms to themselves.”