Dinah however stood her ground with a confidence which his wild performance hardly justified, and the moment he alighted sprang to meet him with the eagerness of a child escaped from school.

“Oh, Eustace, it is fun coming here!  I was so horribly afraid something would stop me just at the last.  But everything has turned out all right, and we are going to have ever such a fine wedding with crowds and crowds of people.  Did you know Isabel wrote and said she would give me my wedding dress?  Isn’t it dear of her?  How is she now?”

“Where is your luggage?” said Eustace.

She pointed to a diminutive dress-basket behind her.  “That’s all there is.  I’m not to stay more than a week as the time is getting so short I don’t feel as if I shall ever be ready as it is.  I’ve never been so rushed before.  I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be almost better to put it off a few weeks.”

“Jump up!” commanded Eustace, with a curt sign to a porter to pick up his fiancee’s humble impediments.

Dinah sprang up beside him and slipped a shy hand onto his knee.  “You look more like Apollo than ever,” she whispered, awe-struck, “when you frown like that.  Is anything the matter?”

His brow cleared magically at her action.  “I began to think I should have to come down to Perrythorpe and fetch you,” he said, grasping the little nervous fingers.  “I thought you meant to give me the slip—­if you could.”

“Oh no!” said Dinah, shocked at the suggestion.  “I wanted to come; only—­only—­I couldn’t be spared sooner.  It wasn’t my fault,” she urged pleadingly.  “Truly it wasn’t!”

He smiled upon her.  “All right,—­Daphne.  I’ll forgive you this time,” he said.  “But now I’ve got you, my nymph of the woods, I am not going to part with you again in a hurry.  And if you talk of putting off the wedding again, I’ll simply run away with you.  So now you know what to expect.”

Dinah uttered her giddy little laugh.  The excitement of this visit—­the first she had ever paid to anyone—­had turned her head.  “Do you know Rose is actually going to be my chief bridesmaid?” she said.  “Isn’t that—­magnanimous of her?  She is pretending to be pleased, but I know she is frightfully jealous underneath.  The other bridesmaid is the Vicar’s daughter.  She is quite old, nearly thirty but I couldn’t think of anyone else, except the infant schoolmistress, and they wouldn’t let me have her.  I shall feel rather small, shan’t I?  Even Rose is twenty-five.  I wonder if I shall feel grown up when I’m married.  Do you think I shall?”

“Not till you cease to be—­Daphne,” said Sir Eustace enigmatically.

He started the car with the words, and they shot forward with a suddenness that made Dinah hold her breath.

But in a few moments she was chattering again, for she was never quiet for long.  How was Scott?  Was he at home?  And Isabel—­he hadn’t told her.  She did hope dear Isabel was keeping better.  Was she?  Was she?