"Yes, they are very nice," said Leonora. "But I have—a friend who has much finer ones. Her father gave them to her for a birthday present. They cost fifty thousand dollars."
"What an odd girl! She is not one bit astonished at the splendor of anything she sees. She has seen a great deal of the world, really, and America must be a much finer place than I ever thought it," mused Mrs. West to herself.
"There, the waltz is over, Aunt West," whispered the girl, clinging to her arm. "Hadn't we better go now? Some one may come out here."
"Yes, if you have seen enough—have you?" Mrs. West replied, and Leonora answered:
"Yes, quite enough, thank you. I do not like to look at such gayety, and my dear papa so lately dead. Oh, Aunt West, please let us walk out in the air awhile. It is so warm here, and these vines are full of spiders and cobwebs, just like that china-closet."
When Leonora West said "please" in that coaxing tone there were not many people who could resist her. Mrs. West did not. She said to herself that it would be no harm to walk about the grounds a bit with her niece. She could not refuse her a breath of fresh air, certainly.
She saw Lady Lancaster sitting in a chair in the ball-room, and she did not think it likely that she would stir from her seat for at least an hour.
"So I'll run the risk," said the kind-hearted woman. "Come along, Leonora."
They went down into the beautiful grounds, along the moonlighted paths, past gleaming groups of statuary, ghost-like in the weird light, past beds of rarest flowers, past thickets of roses, walls of honeysuckles, with the white radiance of the moon shining over everything.
"How sweet this is!" the girl whispered. "When we were crossing the ocean, I grew so tired of the water and the sky; I longed for the green grass and the flowers. How soft and fragrant the air is, and how beautiful the moonlight! I think I could stay out here all night."