‘No more I did till this winter,’ said Florence; ’I could not do anything, you know, before.  Indeed, I do not do much now, only Rotherwood has made me go into the school now and then; and when first we came, he made it his especial request that whenever a poor woman came to ask for anything I would go and speak to her.  And so I could not help being interested about those I knew.’

‘How odd it is that we never talked about it,’ said Lily.

‘I never talk of it,’ said Florence, ’because mamma never likes to hear of my going into cottages with Rotherwood.  Besides, somehow I thought you did it as a matter of duty, and not of pleasure.  Oh!  Rotherwood, is that you?’

‘The Aylmers are come,’ said Lord Rotherwood, drawing her arm into his, ’and I want you to come and speak to them, Florence and Lily; I can’t find any one; all the great elders have vanished.  You know them of old, do not you, Lily?’

’Of old?  Yes; but of so old that I do not suppose they will know me.  You must introduce me.’

He hastened them to the drawing-room, where they found Miss Aylmer, a sensible, lady-like looking person, and two brothers, of about fifteen and thirteen.

’Well, Miss Aylmer, I have brought you two old friends; so old, that they think you have forgotten them—­my cousin Lilias, and my sister Florence.’

‘We have not forgotten you, Miss Aylmer,’ said Florence, warmly shaking hands with her.  ’You seem so entirely to belong to Hetherington that I scarcely knew the place without you.’

There was something that particularly pleased Lily in the manner in which Miss Aylmer answered.  Florence talked a little while, and then proposed to adjourn to the supplementary drawing-room—­the lawn—­ where the company were already assembling.

Florence was soon called off to receive some other guest, and Lilias spent a considerable time in sitting under a tree talking to Miss Aylmer, whom she found exceedingly pleasant and agreeable, remembering all that had happened during their former intercourse, and interested in everything that was going on.  Lily was much amused when her companion asked her who that gentleman was—­’that tall, thin young man, with dark hair, whom she had seen once or twice speaking to Lord Rotherwood?’

The tall gentleman advanced, spoke to Miss Aylmer, told Lily that the world was verging towards the tent, and giving one arm to her and the other to Miss Aylmer, took that direction.  In the meantime Phyllis had been walking about with her eldest sister, and wondering what had become of all the others.  In process of time she found herself seated on a high bench in the tent, with a most beautiful pink-and-white sugar temple on the table before her.  She was between Eleanor and Frank.  All along one side of the table was a row of faces which she had never seen before, and she gazed at them in search of some well-known countenance.  At last Mr. Weston caught