royal jewels or something of that sort. But a
diamond necklace brought here to Addington in Madame Beattie's bag--"

Lydia got up and went over to her. Her charming face was hot with anger,
and she looked, too, so much a child that she might in a minute stamp
her foot or scream.

"Why, you simpleton!" said she.

"Lydia!" Anne threw in, the only stop-gap she could catch at in her
amaze. This was her "little sister", but of a complexion she had never
seen.

"Don't you know what kind of a person Madame Beattie is? Why, she's a
princess. She's more than a princess. She's had kings and emperors
wallowing round the floor after her, begging to kiss her hand."

Anne looked at her. Lydia afterward, in her own room, thought, with a
gale of hysterical laughter, "She just looked at me." And Anne couldn't
find a word to crush the little termagant. Everything that seemed to
pertain was either satirical, as to ask, "Did she tell you so?" or
compassionate, implying cerebral decay. But she did venture the
compassion.

"Lydia, don't you think you'd better go to bed?"

"Yes," said Lydia promptly, and went out and shut the door.

And on the way to her room, Anne noted, she was singing, or in a fashion
she had in moments of triumph, tooting through closed lips, like a
trumpet, the measures of a march. In half an hour Anne followed her, to
listen at her door. Lydia was silent. Anne hoped she was asleep.

In the morning there was the little termagant again with that same
triumph on her face, talking more than usual at the breakfast table, and
foolishly, as she hadn't since Jeffrey came. It had always been
understood that Lydia had times of foolishness; but it had seemed, after
Jeffrey appeared among them clothed in tragedy, that everything would be
henceforth on a dignified, even an austere basis. But here she was,
chaffing the colonel and chattering childish jargon to Anne. Jeffrey
looked at her, first with a tolerant surprise. Then he smiled. Seeing
her so light-hearted he was pleased. This was a Lydia he approved of. He
need neither run clear of her poetic emotions nor curse himself for
calling on them. He went out to his hoeing with an unformulated idea
that the tension of social life had let up a little.

Lydia did no dusting of tables or arranging of flowers in a vase. By a
hand upon Anne's arm she convoyed her into the hall, and said to her:

"Get your hat. We're going to see Mr. Alston Choate."

"What for?" asked Anne.