‘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.’
‘She is Phyllis’s husband’s sister,’ pleaded Gillian.
Lady Rotherwood made a little bend of acquiescence, but said no more, and departed, while Gillian inly raged. A few months ago she would have acted on her own responsibility (if Mysie would not have been too much shocked), but she had learnt the wisdom of submission in fact, if not in word, for she growled about great ladies and exclusiveness, so that Mysie looked mystified.
It was certainly rather dull in the only half-revivified London house, and Belgrave Square in Lent did not present a lively scene from the windows. The Liddesdales had a house there, but they were not to come up till the season began; and Gillian was turning with a sigh to ask if there might not be some books in Fly’s schoolroom, when Mysie caught the sound of a bell, and ventured on an expedition to find her ladyship and ask leave to go to church.