‘She is Phyllis’s husband’s sister,’ pleaded Gillian.

Lady Rotherwood made a little bend of acquiescence, but said no more, and departed, while Gillian inly raged.  A few months ago she would have acted on her own responsibility (if Mysie would not have been too much shocked), but she had learnt the wisdom of submission in fact, if not in word, for she growled about great ladies and exclusiveness, so that Mysie looked mystified.

It was certainly rather dull in the only half-revivified London house, and Belgrave Square in Lent did not present a lively scene from the windows.  The Liddesdales had a house there, but they were not to come up till the season began; and Gillian was turning with a sigh to ask if there might not be some books in Fly’s schoolroom, when Mysie caught the sound of a bell, and ventured on an expedition to find her ladyship and ask leave to go to church.

There, to their unexpected delight, they beheld not only Bessie, but a clerical-looking back, which, after some watching, they so identified that they looked at one another with responsive eyes, and Gillian doubted whether this were recompense for submission, or reproof for discontent.

Very joyful was the meeting on the steps of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, and an exchange of ’Oh! how did you come here?  Where are you?’

Harry had come up the day before, and was to go and meet the travellers at Southampton with his uncle, Admiral Merrifield, who had brought his eldest daughter Susan to relieve her sister or assist her.  Great was the joy and eager the talk, as first Bessie was escorted by the whole party back to grandmamma’s house, and then Harry accompanied his sisters to Belgrave Square, where he was kept to luncheon, and Lady Rotherwood was as glad to resign his sisters to his charge as he could be to receive them.

He had numerous commissions to execute for his vicar, and Gillian had to assist the masculine brains in the department of Church needlework, actually venturing to undertake some herself, trusting to the tuition of Aunt Ada, a proficient in the same; while Mysie reverently begged at least to hem the borders.

Then they revelled in the little paradises of books and pictures in Northumberland Avenue and Westminster Sanctuary, and went to Evensong at the Abbey, Mysie’s first sight thereof, and nearly the like to Gillian, since she only remembered before a longing not to waste time in a dull place instead of being in the delightful streets.

‘It is a thing never to forget,’ she said under her breath, as they lingered in the nave.

‘I never guessed anything could make one feel so,’ added Mysie, with a little sigh of rapture.

’That strange unexpected sense of delight always seems to me to explain, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,"’ said Harry.

Mysie whispered—–­

’Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice opprest!’