'No, no; I am sure you are above that sort of thing. Isn't it becoming the fashion for ladies to be independent?'—persuasively.
'We are old-fashioned, and like to be waited upon.'
He laughed. 'I should like to be useful, of course. But wouldn't you find me useful to point a moral? Suppose you were to illustrate the evils of laziness, for instance, and make me the example; eh, Mary?'—tossing a bit of twig on to my work.
'As though I would encourage you that way!'
'Shew that dimple again, if you please, Miss Haddon!'
'You absurd person!'
'Thank you.'
'I feel an inclination to be discreet coming on,' whispered Lilian.
'Repress it at once,' I replied very decidedly.
Ah, what pleasant nonsense it was! The woods rang out with many a merry laugh at our quips and cranks and gay badinage that afternoon. Philip affirmed that our lives had been too sombre and severe, and that he had only arrived just in time to rescue us from becoming 'superior' women. The brightening-up process devolved upon him. We could not deny that he had the power. Lilian altogether got rid of her shyness, and was almost as frank and outspoken with him as with me. She gaily claimed to be considered his sister by-and-by; and drew an amusing picture of herself in the future as a model old maid. 'Not prim and proper, you know—no, indeed; I intend to be a nice little round woman, to go about loving and comforting people.'