’Because he is so—–­ Oh!  I don’t know how to say it, but he is just like Epaminondas, or King Arthur, or Robert Bruce, or—–­’

‘Well, that’s enough’ said Fly; ’I am sure my daddy would laugh if you said he was like all those.’

‘To be sure he would!’ said Mysie.  ’And do you think I would give mine for him, though yours is so kind and good and such fun?’

‘And I’m sure I’d rather have him than yours,’ said Fly.

’Well, that’s right.  It would be wicked not to like one’s own father and mother best.’

’But if they thought it would be good for you to have all my governesses and advantages, and they took pity on my loneliness.  What then?’

‘Then?  Oh!  I’d try to bear it,’ said unworldly and uncomplimentary Mysie.  ‘And you need not be lonely now.  There’s Val!’

The two governesses had made friends, and the embargo on intercourse with Valetta had been allowed to drop; but Fly only shook her head, and allowed that Val was better than nothing.’

Mysie had a certain confidence that mamma would not give her away if all the lords and ladies in the world wanted her; and Gillian confirmed her in that belief, so that no misgiving interfered with her joy at finding herself in the train, where Lord Rotherwood declared that the two pair of eyes shone enough to light a candle by.

‘I feel,’ said Mysie, jumping up and down in her seat, ’like the man who said he had a bird in his bosom.’

‘Or a bee in his bonnet, eh?’ said Lord Rotherwood, while Mysie obeyed a sign from my lady to moderate the restlessness of her ecstasies.

‘It really was a bird in his bosom,’ said Gillian gravely, ’only he said so when he was dying in battle, and he meant his faith to his king.’

‘And little Mysie has kept her faith to her mother,’ said their cousin, putting out his hand to turn the happy face towards him.  ‘So the bird may well sing to her.’

‘In spite of parting with Phyllis?’ asked Lady Rotherwood.

‘I can’t help it, indeed,’ said Mysie, divided between her politeness and her dread of being given away; ’it has been very nice, but one’s own, own papa and mamma must be more than any one.’

‘So they ought,’ said Lord Rotherwood, and there it ended, chatter in the train not being considered desirable.

Gillian longed to show Mysie and Geraldine Grinstead to each other, and the first rub with her hostess occurred when the next morning she proposed to take a cab and go to Brompton.

‘Is not your first visit due to your grandmother?’ said Lady Rotherwood.  ’You might walk there, and I will send some one to show you the way.’

‘We must not go there till after luncheon,’ said Gillian.  ’She is not ready to see any one, and Bessie Merrifield cannot be spared; but I know Mrs. Grinstead will like to see us, and I do so want Mysie to see the studio.’

‘My dear’ (it was not a favourable my dear), ’I had rather you did not visit any one I do not know while you are under my charge.’