‘Are you alone?’ Mrs. Ormonde asked.

‘Yes, I have walked.’

‘Who do you think this is?’ Mrs. Ormonde murmured quickly.  ’Mr. Grail’s future wife.  She has just brought one of my children down; I am going to keep her till Monday.  Come and speak; the most loveable child!’

Thyrza and Annabel were presented to each other with the pleasant informality which Mrs. Ormonde so naturally employed.  Each was impressed with the other’s beauty; Thyrza felt not a little awe, and Annabel could not gaze enough at the lovely face which made such a surprise for her.

‘Why did Mr. Egremont give me no suggestion of this?’ she said to herself.

She had noticed, in drawing near, how intimately her friend and the stranger were talking together.  Her arrival had disturbed Thyrza’s confidence; she herself did not feel able to talk quite freely.  So in a few minutes she turned and went by the footway along the edge of the height.  Just before descending into a hollow which would hide her, she cast a look back, and saw that Thyrza’s eyes were following her.

‘But how could he speak of her and yet tell me nothing?’

His delicacy explained it, no doubt.  He had not liked to say of the simple girl whom Grail was to marry that she was very beautiful.  Annabel felt that most men would have been less scrupulous:  it was characteristic of Egremont to feel a subtle propriety of that kind.

Annabel was at all times disposed to interpret Egremont’s motives in a higher sense than would apply to the average man.

On her return, Thyrza had tea with Mrs. Mapper and the children, then went with them to the large room upstairs in which evenings were spent till the early bedtime.  It was an ideal nursery, with abundant picture-books, with toys, with everything that could please a child’s eye and engage a child’s mind.  There was a piano, and on this Mrs. Mapper sometimes played the kind of music that children would like.  She taught them songs, moreover, and a singing evening was always much looked forward to.  Saturday was always such; when the little choir had got a song perfect, Mrs. Ormonde was wont to come up and hear them sing it, making them glad with her praise.

It happened that to-night there was to be practising of a new song; Mrs. Mapper had chosen ‘Annie Laurie,’ and she began by playing over the air.  One or two of the children knew it, but not the words; these, it was found, were always very quickly learnt by singing a verse a few times over.

’Do you know ‘Annie Laurie,’ Miss Trent?’ Mrs. Mapper asked.

It was one of old Mr. Boddy’s favourites; Thyrza had sung it to him since she was seven years old.

‘Let us sing it together then, will you?’

They began.  Thyrza was already thoroughly at home, and this music was an unexpected delight.  After a line or two, Mrs. Mapper’s voice sank.  Thyrza stopped and looked inquiringly, meeting a wonder in the other’s eyes.  Mrs. Mapper was a woman of much prudence; she merely said: