Milly blushed, and smiled at this compliment, but still clung to her father, with shy downcast eyes.

I had time to look at Mrs. Darrell while this introduction was being made.  She was not by any means a beautiful woman, but she was what I suppose would have been called eminently interesting.  She was tall and slim, very graceful-looking, with a beautiful throat and a well-shaped head.  Her features, with the exception of her eyes, were in no way remarkable; but those were sufficiently striking to give character to a face that might otherwise have been insipid.  They were large luminous gray eyes, with black lashes, and rather strongly-marked brows of a much darker brown than her hair.  That was of a nondescript shade, neither auburn nor chestnut, and with little light or colour in its soft silky masses; but it seemed to harmonise very well with her pale complexion.  Lavater has warned us to distrust any one whose hair and eyebrows are of a different colour.  I remembered this as I looked at Mrs. Darrell.

She was dressed in white; and I fancied the transparent muslin, with no other ornament than a lilac ribbon at the waist, was peculiarly becoming to her slender figure and delicate face.  Her husband seemed to think so too, for he looked at her with a fond admiring glance as he offered her his arm to return to the house.

‘I mustn’t forget to introduce Miss Crofton to you, Augusta,’ he said; ’a school friend of Milly’s, who has kindly accepted my invitation to spend the holidays with her.’

Mrs. Darrell gave me her hand; but I fancied that she did so rather coldly, and I had an uneasy sense that I was not very welcome to the new mistress of Thornleigh.

‘You will find your old rooms all ready for you, Milly,’ she said; ’I suppose we had better put Miss Crofton in the blue room—­next yours?’

‘If you please, Mrs. Darrell.’

‘What, Milly, won’t you call me mamma?’

Milly was silent for a few moments, with a pained expression in her face.

‘Pray, forgive me,’ she said in a low voice; ’I cannot call any one by that name.’

Augusta Darrell kissed her again silently.

‘It shall be as you wish, dear,’ she said, after a pause.

A rosy-cheeked, pleasant-looking girl, who had been accustomed to wait on Milly in the old time, came forward to meet us, and ran before us to our rooms, expressing her delight at her young lady’s return all the way she went.

The rooms were very pretty, and were situated in that portion of the house which looked towards the sea.  There was a sitting-room, brightly furnished with some light kind of wood, and with chintz hangings all over rose-buds and butterflies.  This had been Milly’s schoolroom, and there was a good many books in two pretty-looking bookcases on each side of the fireplace.  Besides these, there were some curious old cabinets full of shells and china.  It was altogether the prettiest, most homelike room one could imagine.