g
over her shoulder and holding back the menacing arm, was a face as
innocent but lovelier far,--the face of a girl in her first youth,
framed round with the blossoms that festooned the trellise. How the face
became the flowers! It seemed the fairy spirit of them.

Kenelm started and rose to his feet. The child, the one whom he had so
ungallantly escaped from ran towards him through a wicket in the circle.
Her companion disappeared.

"Is it you?" said Kenelm to the child, "you who pelted me so cruelly?
Ungrateful creature! Did I not give you the best strawberries in the
dish and all my own cream?"

"But why did you run away and hide yourself when you ought to be dancing
with me?" replied the young lady, evading, with the instinct of her sex,
all answer to the reproach she had deserved.

"I did not run away, and it is clear that I did not mean to hide myself,
since you so easily found me out. But who was the young lady with you?
I suspect she pelted me too, for she seems to have run away to hide
herself."

"No, she did not pelt you; she wanted to stop me, and you would have had
another rosebud--oh, so much bigger!--if she had not held back my arm.
Don't you know her,--don't you know Lily?"

"No; so that is Lily? You shall introduce me to her."

By this time they had passed out of the circle through the little wicket
opposite the path by which Kenelm had entered, and opening at once on
the lawn. Here at some distance the children were grouped, some reclined
on the grass, some walking to and fro, in the interval of the dance.

In the space between the group and the trellise Lily was walking alone
and quickly. The child left Kenelm's side and ran after her friend, soon
overtook, but did not succeed in arresting her steps. Lily did not pause
till she had reached the grassy ball-room, and here all the children
came round her and shut out her delicate form from Kenelm's sight.

Before he had reached the place, Mrs. Braefield met him.

"Lily is come!"

"I know it: I have seen her."

"Is not she beautiful?"

"I must see more of her if I am to answer critically; but before you
introduce me, may I be permitted to ask who and what is Lily?"

Mrs. Braefield paused a moment before she answered, and yet the
answer was brief enough not to need much consideration. "She is a Miss
Mordaunt, an orphan; and, as I before told you, resides with her aunt,
Mrs. Cameron, a widow. They have the prettiest cottage you ever saw on