"Come, Elsie," interrupted her mother, "come, we must go. Mademoiselle Laurentia will be lonely."
The ladies rose to go, Elsie saying in an undertone to The McAllister:
"Now, don't spend an hour over those stupid politics. I want you to hear mademoiselle sing."
"Politics!" he replied, with a disdainful shrug of his shoulders. "I take no interest whatever in them. Do not fear, Miss Elsie."
"I should like to know what you do take an interest in," remarked the young lady mischievously, as she hurried out of the room.
On entering the drawing-room they failed to find Mademoiselle Laurentia, so Lady Severn proposed that they should go into the garden.
"Elsie, run up to my room and fetch some shawls; the evening is quite chilly."
It was a lovely night in the end of April; the moon was full, and glimmering with sheeny whiteness over the distant hills. The garden at Mount Severn was an old-fashioned one, laid out in the early Elizabethan style in stately terraces and winding paths.
On each terrace were planted beds of luxuriant scarlet geraniums and early spring flowers. Every once in a while one came across a huge copper beech, and gloomy close-clipped hedges of yew divided the garden proper from the adjacent park.
Somewhere in the distance could be heard the trickling of a tiny rivulet, which supplied the fountain in the middle of the garden. There were many roughly-hewn, picturesque-looking rustic chairs scattered about, and near one of these Lady Margaret paused.