‘Dear Lyddy!’ she murmured.  A tear formed upon her eyelashes, and her voice made trembled music.  ’Dear sister!  You’re glad to see me again?’

’It seems an age, my own darling!  You can’t think what Sunday was like to me without you.  And how well you look, my beautiful!  See what a letter I’ve had from Mrs. Ormonde.  Do tell me what she’s like!  How did she come to ask you if you’d stay!  To think of you saying I should be cross with her!  But of course that was only fun.  My dear one!  And what’s the sea like?  Were you on the shore again this morning?’

‘How many questions does that make, I wonder, Lyddy?’ Thyrza said, with a smile still much graver than of wont.  ’I shan’t tell you anything till you’ve had dinner.  It’s all ready for you downstairs.’

‘You know what they want us to do?’

’Oh, I’ve talked it all over with Mrs. Grail.  I don’t think we ought to refuse, Lyddy.  And so I’m not to go to work any more?  I wish it was the same for you, dear.  Shall you find it very hard to go alone?’

’Hard?  Not I!  Why, whatever should I do with myself if I stayed at home?  It’s different with you; you must learn all you can, so as to be able to talk to Gilbert.’

‘Come to dinner!’

Lydia paused at the door.

‘What has come to you, Thyrza?’ she asked, looking in her sister’s face.  ’You’re not the same, somehow.  Oh, how did you manage to do your own hair?  But there’s something different in you, Blue-eyes.’

’Is there?  Yes, perhaps.  Oh, we’ve a deal to talk about to-night, Lyddy!’

’But Gilbert ‘ll want you to-night.’

‘No.  That must be to-morrow.’

And so it was.  When all had sat together for an hour at Gilbert’s late meal, the sisters went up to their room.  Gilbert understood this perfectly well.  The next evening would be his.

When it came, Mrs. Grail made an excuse to go and sit with Lydia.  Thyrza had her easy-chair; Gilbert was at a little distance.  The privileges he asked were very few.  Sometimes, when Thyrza and he were alone, he would bold her hand for a minute, and at parting he kissed her, but more of acted tenderness than that he did not allow himself.  To-night, whilst she was speaking, he gazed at her continuously.  He too observed the change of which Lydia had at once become aware.  Thyrza seemed to have grown older in those two days.  Her very way of sitting was marked by a maturer dignity, and in her speech it was impossible not to be struck with the self-restraint, the thoughtful choice of words, which had taken the place of her former impulsiveness.

She dwelt much upon the delight she had received from Miss Newthorpe’s playing.  That had clearly made a great impression upon her.

’There was something she played, Gilbert, that told just what I felt when I first saw the sea.  Do you know what I mean?  Does music ever seem to speak to you in that way?  It’s really as if it spoke words.’