"At your service, monsieur. To think you should have forgotten me so completely in a decade of years. For shame, Sir Rupert Thetford!"
And then she was in Aileen Jocyln's arms, and there was an hiatus filled up with kisses.
"Oh! what a surprise." Miss Jocyln cried, breathlessly. "Have you dropped from the skies? I thought you were in France."
May Everard laughed, the mischievous laugh of thirteen years ago, as she held up her dimpled cheeks, first one and then the other, to Sir Rupert.
"Did you? So I was, but I ran away."
"Ran away! From school?"
"Something very like it. Oh! how stupid it was, and I couldn't endure it any longer; and I am so filled with knowledge now, that if I held any more, I should explode; and so when vacation began, and I was permitted to spend a week with a friend I just took French leave and came home instead. And so," folding the fairy hands, and nodding her little ringleted head, "here I am."
"But, good heavens!" cried Sir Rupert, aghast, "you never mean to say, May, you have come alone."
"All alone," said May, with another nod. "I'm used to it, you know; did it last vacation. Came across and spent it with Mrs. Weymore. I don't mind it the least; don't know what sea-sickness is; and oh! didn't some of the poor wretches suffer! Isn't it fortunate I'm here for the ball? And, Rupert, good gracious! how you've grown!"
"Thanks. I can't see that you have changed much, Miss Everard. You are the same curly-haired, saucy fairy I knew thirteen years ago. What does my lady say to this escapade?"