“What has that wretched girl been doing now?”

“Oh, don’t you know?  The yacht had to be overhauled, so they went to Florence instead, and have been wandering about in all the resorts of rather shady people, where Lisette can cut a figure.  Mr. Wakefield is terribly afraid that even poor Mr. Gould himself is taking to gambling for want of something to do.  There are always reports coming of Elfie taking up with some count or baron.  It was a Russian prince last time, and then Ali goes down into the very lowest depths, and can’t do anything but smoke.  You know that’s good for blighted beings.  I cure my plants by putting them into his room surreptitiously.”

“You are a hard-hearted little mortal, Babie.  Ah, there’s the bell!”

Mrs. Brownlow came in with the two Johns, who had joined her just as she had finished talking to the poor woman; Jock carried off his friend to dress, and Babie, after finishing her arrangements and making the most of every fragment of flower or leaf, repaired with a selection of delicate sprays, to the room where Esther, having put her little sister to bed, was dressing for dinner.  She was eager to tell of her alarm at the invasion, and of Captain Evelyn’s good nature when she had expected him to be proud and disagreeable.

“He wanted to be,” said Babie, “but honest nature was too strong for him.”

“Johnny was so angry at the way he treated Jock.”

“O, we quite forget all that.  Poor fellow! it was a mistaken reading of noblesse oblige, and he is very much ashamed of it.  There, let me put this fern and fuchsia into your hair.  I’ll try to do it as well as Ellie would.”

She did so, and better, being more dainty-fingered, and having more taste.  It really was an artistic pleasure to deal with such beautiful hair, and such a lovely lay figure as Esther’s.  With all her queenly beauty and grace, the girl had that simplicity and sedateness which often goes with regularity of feature, and was hardly conscious of the admiration she excited.  Her good looks were those of the family, and Kenminster was used to them.  This was her first evening of company, for on the only previous occasion her little sister had been unwell, sleepless and miserable in the strange house, and she had begged off.  She was very shy now, and could not go down without Barbara’s protection, so, at the last moment before dinner, the little brown fairy led in the tall, stately maiden, all in white, with the bright fuchsias and delicate fern in her dark hair, and a creamy rose, set off by a few more in her bosom.

Babie exulted in her work, and as her mother beheld Cecil’s raptured glance and the incarnadine glow it called up, she guessed all that would follow in one rapid prevision, accompanied by a sharp pang for her son in Japan.  It was not in her maternal heart not to hope almost against her will that some fibre had been touched by Bobus that would be irresponsive to others, but duty and loyalty alike forbade the slightest attempt to revive the thought of the poor absentee, and she must steel herself to see things take their course, and own it for the best.