e better for you if you were."

"Isabel, why--why?" Dinah pressed close to her, half-curious,
half-frightened.

But Isabel did not answer her. She only kissed the vivid, upturned face
with all a mother's tenderness, and turned back in silence, to the
fashion-book on her knee.

CHAPTER VII

DOUBTING CASTLE

When Sir Eustace returned, he found his bride-elect awaiting him with a
radiant face. She sprang to greet him with an eagerness that outwent all
shyness.

"Oh, Eustace, I have had such a lovely time!" she told him. "It has been
a perfect day."

She offered him her lips with a child's simplicity, but blushed deeply
when she felt the hot pressure of his, turning her face aside the moment
he released her.

He laughed a little, keeping his arm about her shoulders. "You haven't
missed me then?" he said.

"Oh, not a bit," said Dinah truthfully; and then quickly, "but what a
horrid thing to say! Why did you put it like that?"

"I wanted to know," said Sir Eustace.

She turned back to him. "I should have missed you if I hadn't been so
busy. Isabel is going to help me with my trousseau. And oh, Eustace, I am
to have such a crowd of lovely things."

He pinched her cheek. "What should a brown elf need beyond a shift of
thistle-down? Where is Isabel?"

"She is resting now. She got so tired. Biddy said she must lie down, and
we mustn't disturb her for tea. I do hope it wasn't too much for her,
Eustace."

"Too much for her! Nonsense! It does her good to think of someone else
besides herself," said Eustace. "If Biddy didn't coddle her so in the day
time, she would sleep better at night. Well, where is tea? In the
drawing-room? Come along and have it!"

Dinah clung to his arm. "It--it's in a place called my lady's boudoir,"
she told him shyly.

He looked at her. "Where? Oh, I know. That inner sanctuary with the west
window. You've taken a fancy to it, have you? Then we will call it
Daphne's Bower."

Dinah's laugh was not without a hint of restraint. "I haven't been in any
other room. Scott said you would show me everything. But I just wandered
in there, and he found me and showed me the dear little boudoir. He said
you were going to have it done up."

"So I am," said Eustace. "Everything that belongs to you must be new.
Have you decided what colour will suit you best?"

They were passing through the long drawing-room towards the curtained
doorway that led into the little boudoir. The drawing-room wa