"But she is of her mother's family as well as ours," said the elder sister, seriously. "You can answer for your own blood, but never for another. Have you been out too, Mr. Murray? There is a breath about you of the caller air."
"That is a pretty word, the caller air," said Lewis. "It is just upon dawn, and the birds will soon be singing; but I think it is too cold for the ladies to go out. They are very brave not to mind."
"Brave!—I call it foolhardy; and, indeed, if it's on the turn of the dawning, as Mr. Murray says, I think, Jean, we should be making our way——"
"Margaret," cried Lilias in her ear, "I have got it upon me! Now I am going to dance every dance. It is just a sort of a fever, and, when you take it, it must run its course. Was this the dance you asked me for?" the girl said, turning and holding out her hand to Lewis. Her eyes were shining, her face full of animation, the thrill of the music in her frame.
Lewis was so much entranced gazing at her that he scarcely realized the boon she was offering him. Did she mean to turn his head? She who had refused half the people in the room, and now gave herself to him with this sweet cordiality. The sisters sat and looked at each other when the pair floated away.
"It is because she thinks him a stranger, and a little out of his element," said Jean, ever ready with an apology.
"A stranger! He is just a beautiful dancer. Very likely he would be clumsy in a reel; but nobody dances reels nowadays. And as for those round dances (which I cannot say I approve of), he is just perfect. I don't wonder Lilias likes to dance with him. But I hope she will not just put things into his head," Margaret said.
"Oh, no," said Jean—"I don't think she will do that."
It was not till two hours later, in the lovely early daylight, that the Miss Murrays left the Tower. Though there was not much room in the brougham, they sat close to take Mrs. Seton and her daughter into it, Katie, much subdued, sitting on Miss Margaret's velvet lap, upon the point lace which was almost the most valuable thing she possessed. The elder ladies talked a little, moralizing upon the perversity of human nature, which sent them home like this in their finery on the bonnie bright morning, when working folk were going out to their day's darg.
"If they would have the sense to begin early, as you do at your little tea-parties," Miss Margaret said, graciously.