It was a woman’s—a girl’s—voice, singing softly, but clearly, the old ballad of “Robin Adair.” Stasy had never heard it; but she was of a sensitive and impressionable nature, and the indescribable charm of the song fell upon her at once. She stood motionless, till, in another moment, the figure of the singer, advancing towards her, grew visible.
“I knew it was a girl,” thought Stasy. “I hope she won’t leave off, I wish I could hide.”
She glanced round her. There was no possibility of such a thing; and in another moment the new-comer had seen her, and had left off singing. She stopped short as she came up to Stasy, and glanced at her inquiringly, with a slight, half-comical smile.
“Have you lost your way?” she said. “Are you not one of the Miss Derwents? It seems always my fate to be directing one or other of you. I met your little brother a day or two ago, looking as if he had lost his way.”
“No,” said Stasy laughing; “he had only lost us. And I have not lost my way either, thank you. I am waiting in the fly at the door for my mother and sister, who are calling on Lady Harriot Dunstan.”
“Are you?” said Lady Hebe. “I should have said, do you know, that you were wandering about the woods at the back of the house, looking for—I don’t know what.”
Stasy laughed again. There was something infectious about Hebe’s comical tone.
“Primroses,” Stasy replied promptly. “It was primroses that first lured me out of the fly, I think. But now I’m beginning to be afraid that mamma and Blanche may be waiting for me; perhaps I had better go back.”
“They can scarcely be ready yet,” said her new friend. “They had not come in when I left the drawing-room, and I have not been long. I only stopped a minute or two to speak to the dogs. There are some dear dogs here. And tea was just about coming in. No; you are safe for a few minutes yet. Would you”—and she hesitated a little—“would you like to walk to the lodge with me, and a little way down the road I can show you another way back to the front of the house?”
Stasy was delighted.