“He isn’t!” Leslie stamped his foot.
“He is!”
“He isn’t. You are a horrid little girl, and I don’t like you a bit.”
“Children, what are you quarrelling about?” said a lady’s voice from behind one of the pillars. “It is very naughty to quarrel. Come and tell me what is the matter.”
Leslie dissolved into tears, and hid his face in the folds of his mother’s skirt, whilst Phyllis stood by abashed. Lady Chesterwood, not wishing to have her gown marred by her son’s emotion, produced a small cambric handkerchief, and placed it between the child’s face and her skirt.
“Now,” she said, addressing herself to Phyllis, “why did you make Leslie cry?”
“I didn’t make him cry,” the Premier’s daughter answered sulkily. “I only told him his father was dead. It is quite true. His father is dead.”
“He isn’t,” came from Leslie, in a stifled voice. “She says my father is in a hole in the ground, with a lot of nasty earth and a stone on top of him; and he isn’t! My father doesn’t live in a hole.”
The Countess maintained a calm demeanour.
“Your father is above the bright blue sky with the angels, sonnie,” she said soothingly. “Don’t you remember that I told you he had gone away to heaven?”