Isabel smiled at her with a touch of pity in her eyes.  “Marriage isn’t only new clothes and wedding presents, Dinah,” she said.

“No, no!  I know!” Dinah spoke with swift compunction.  “It is far more than that.  But I’ve never had such lovely things before.  I can’t help feeling a little giddy about it.  You do understand, don’t you?  I’m not like that all through—­really.”

“My darling!” Isabel answered fondly.  “Of course I know it.  I sometimes think that it would be better for you if you were.”

“Isabel, why—­why?” Dinah pressed close to her, half-curious, half-frightened.

But Isabel did not answer her.  She only kissed the vivid, upturned face with all a mother’s tenderness, and turned back in silence, to the fashion-book on her knee.

CHAPTER VII

DOUBTING CASTLE

When Sir Eustace returned, he found his bride-elect awaiting him with a radiant face.  She sprang to greet him with an eagerness that outwent all shyness.

“Oh, Eustace, I have had such a lovely time!” she told him.  “It has been a perfect day.”

She offered him her lips with a child’s simplicity, but blushed deeply when she felt the hot pressure of his, turning her face aside the moment he released her.

He laughed a little, keeping his arm about her shoulders.  “You haven’t missed me then?” he said.

“Oh, not a bit,” said Dinah truthfully; and then quickly, “but what a horrid thing to say!  Why did you put it like that?”

“I wanted to know,” said Sir Eustace.

She turned back to him.  “I should have missed you if I hadn’t been so busy.  Isabel is going to help me with my trousseau.  And oh, Eustace, I am to have such a crowd of lovely things.”

He pinched her cheek.  “What should a brown elf need beyond a shift of thistle-down?  Where is Isabel?”

“She is resting now.  She got so tired.  Biddy said she must lie down, and we mustn’t disturb her for tea.  I do hope it wasn’t too much for her, Eustace.”

“Too much for her!  Nonsense!  It does her good to think of someone else besides herself,” said Eustace.  “If Biddy didn’t coddle her so in the day time, she would sleep better at night.  Well, where is tea?  In the drawing-room?  Come along and have it!”

Dinah clung to his arm.  “It—­it’s in a place called my lady’s boudoir,” she told him shyly.

He looked at her.  “Where?  Oh, I know.  That inner sanctuary with the west window.  You’ve taken a fancy to it, have you?  Then we will call it Daphne’s Bower.”

Dinah’s laugh was not without a hint of restraint.  “I haven’t been in any other room.  Scott said you would show me everything.  But I just wandered in there, and he found me and showed me the dear little boudoir.  He said you were going to have it done up.”

“So I am,” said Eustace.  “Everything that belongs to you must be new.  Have you decided what colour will suit you best?”