‘Eliz, it’s a real young man!’

‘No! you are only making up, and’ (here a touch of querulousness) ’I’ve often told you that I don’t like make-ups that one wants too much to be true.  I’ll only have the Austens and Sir Charles and Evelina and——­’

’Eliz!  He’s not a make-up; the fairies have sent him to our party.  Isn’t it just fairilly entrancing?  He has a curly moustache and a nice nose.  He’s English, like father.  He says “cawn’t,” and “shawn’t,” and “heah,” and “theyah,”—­genuine, no affectation.  Oh’ (here came a little gurgle of joy), ’and to-night, too!  It’s the first perfectly joyful thing that has ever come to us.’

Courthope moved quietly back and stood before the blazing logs, looking down into them with a smile of pure pleasure upon his lips.

It was not long before the door, which she had left ajar, was re-opened, and a light-wheeled chair was pushed into the room.  It contained a slight, elfin-like girl, white-faced, flaxen-haired, sharp-featured, and arrayed in gorgeous crimson.  The elder sister pushed from behind.  The little procession wore an air of triumphant satisfaction, still tempered by the proprieties.

‘This is my sister,’ said the mistress of the house.

‘I am very glad to see you, Mr. Courthope.’  The tones of Eliz were sharp and thin.  She was evidently acting a part, as with the air of a very grand lady she held out her hand.

He was somewhat dazzled.  He felt it not inappropriate to ask if he had entered fairyland.  Eliz would have answered him with fantastic affirmative, but the elder sister, like a sensible child who knew better how to arrange the game, interposed.

’I’ll explain it to you.  Eliz and I are giving a party to-night.  There hasn’t been any company in the house since father died four years ago, and we know he wouldn’t like us to be dull, so when our stepmother went out, and sent word that she couldn’t come back to-night, we decided to have a grand party.  There are only to be play-people, you know; all the people in Miss Austen’s books are coming, and the nice ones out of Sir Charles Grandison.’

She paused to see if he understood.

‘Are the Mysteries of Udolpho invited?’ he asked.

’No, the others we just chose here and there, because we liked them—­Evelina, although she was rather silly and we told her that we couldn’t have Lord Ormond, and Miss Matty and Brother Peter out of Cranford, and Moses Wakefield, because we liked him best of the family, and the Portuguese nun who wrote the letters.  We thought we would have liked to invite the young man in Maud to meet her, but we decided we should have to draw the line somewhere and leave out the poetry-people.’

The girl, leaning her forearms slightly on the back of her sister’s chair, gave the explanation in soft, business-like tones, and there was only the faintest lurking of a smile about the corners of her lips to indicate that she kept in view both reality and fantasy.