They did not speak.  Billy, holding the slender, unformed figure gently against his breast, looked down at the golden head with an expression of utter tenderness in his eyes, of deep resolve on his lips.

At the end, Lydia looked up with a wondering smile.  “I didn’t know any one could be so perfectly happy, Billy.  I shall always remember that of you—­you gave me my happiest moment.”

On the way home in the bumping hack, Billy seemed to relax.  “Well, did I give you a good time, Miss, or didn’t I?  Could Kent or Gustus have done better?”

“Oh, they!” cried Lydia indignantly.  “But, Billy, I didn’t know you could dance.”

“I couldn’t, but I’ve been taking lessons all winter.  I’m not going to give a girl a chance twice to call me down the way you did last summer.  Of course, this is just a second-hand dress suit, but I think it looks all right, don’t you?”

“Billy,” said Lydia, “last summer I was just a silly little girl.  Now, I’m grown up.  You were the swellest person at the ball to-night.  You just wait till I tell your mother about it.”

Billy went up the path with Lydia to the steps and held her hand a moment in silence after he said, “It’s a wonderful night!”

A wonderful night, indeed!  The moon hung low over the lake and the fragrance of late lilac and of linden blooms enveloped them.  Youth and June-moonlight and silence!  A wonderful night indeed!

“You are very sweet, Lydia,” whispered the young man.  He laid his cheek for a moment against her hand, then turned quickly away.

Lydia watched the carriage drive off, stood for a moment trying to impress forever on her mind the look and odor of the night, then with a tremulous sigh, she went indoors.

CHAPTER XIII

THE INDIAN CELEBRATION

“The oak, the maple, the birch, I love them all, but nothing is so dear to the pine as the pine.”—­The Murmuring Pine.

Lydia was tired the day after the party, tired and moody.  After she had told Lizzie and Ma Norton all about the evening, she spent the rest of the day lying on the lake shore, with a book but not reading.  Late in the afternoon she went into the house and took Florence Dombey from her accustomed seat in a corner of the living-room.

For a long time she sat with Florence Dombey in her arms, looking from the hectic china face to the scintillating turquoise of the lake and listening to the hushed whispering of the pine.  Finally with Adam lumbering jealously after her, she climbed the narrow stairs into the attic.

Back under the eaves stood a packing box into which Lydia never had looked.  It contained all of little Patience’s belongings.  Holding Florence Dombey in one arm, she lifted the lid of the box, catching her breath a little as she glimpsed the cigar box furniture and a folded little white dress.  Very carefully she laid Florence Dombey beside the furniture, leaned over and kissed her china lips and closed down the lid of the box.  Then of a sudden she dropped to the floor with her head against the box and sobbed disconsolately.  Adam gave a howl and crowded into her lap and Lydia hugged him but wept on.