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"Immediately let it be, then." Grace rang and ordered dinner to be served. Thomas, the old butler, and a boy in buttons made their appearance with the first course. Grace had always presided, but this evening she sat beside Eeny, and Miss Kate took the head of the table. "The first time, papa," she said. "If I make any blunders, tell me."
"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Eeny, "I thought some one else was coming. A sick gentleman Mr. what? oh, Richards?" The face of Captain Danton and his eldest daughter darkened suddenly at the question. Grace saw it in surprise.
With which Rose sailed stormily off, with very red cheeks, and very bright, angry eyes, and sought refuge in a book. Grace, perfectly unmoved, quite used to Rose's temper, sewed serenely on, and waited for the rest of the family to appear. Eeny was the next to enter, then came Sir Ronald Keith, who took a chair opposite Captain Danton, and buried himself in another paper.
Just at that instant, with his foot on the threshold, an avalanche of fire seemed to fall on his head from the burning roof. Another cry, this time a cry of wild horror arose from the crowd; he reeled, staggered like a drunken man; some one caught Eeny out of his arms as he fell to the ground.
They descended together to luncheon; pale Eeny was totally eclipsed by brilliant Rose, and all the afternoon they spent together over the piano, and sauntering through the grounds. "Retribution, Eeny," said Grace, kissing Eeny's pale cheek. "You forgot me for this dazzling Kate, and now you are nowhere. You must come back to Grace again." "There is nobody like Grace," said Eeny, nestling close.
Eeny, who shared Grace's room, sat on a stool before the bedroom fire a long time that night, looking dreamily into the glowing coals. Grace, sitting beside her, combing out her own long hair, watched her in silence. Presently Eeny looked up. "How odd it seems to think of her being married." "Who?" "Rose. It seems queer, somehow. I don't mind Kate.
Eeny took her station by the window; she knew the seamstress was in the daily habit of taking a little twilight walk in her favourite circle, round and round the fish-pond, and she could see from where she stood when she went out. "I'll show her to him," thought Eeny, "and see if it flurries him as it did her. There is something between them, if one could get to the bottom of it."
It had been used latterly as a sewing-room, and Agnes Darling sat at the other window embroidering a handkerchief for Rose. There had been a long silence the seamstress never talked much; and Eeny was off in a daydream. Presently, a big dog came bounding tumultuously up the avenue, and a tall man in an overcoat followed leisurely. "There!" exclaimed Eeny, "there's Tiger and Tiger's master.
Before the meal was over, however, the bashfulness, quite foreign to her usual character, wore pretty well away, and she agreed to join a sleighing-party over to Richelieu, a neighbouring village. They were six in all Kate and Mr. Stanford, Rose and Mr. La Touche, Eeny and Doctor Frank.
"Kate was on her dignity, you know, and as unapproachable as a princess-royal, and Grace was looking disconcerted and embarrassed, and papa was trying to be preternaturally cheerful and easy, and Eeny was fidgety and scared, and I was enjoying the fun. Did you ever hear of anything so droll as papa's getting married?" "I never heard of anything more sensible," said Reginald, resolutely.
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