"I should say one does wear one's best hat," she said decidedly. "Especially seeing what a very charming hat it is."
She leaned her elbows on the table and looked at June admiringly. "How long is it since you saw the great and only?" she asked.
June did some rapid counting on her white fingers.
"Nineteen hours exactly," she said. "But it seems like ninety! I nearly died with joy when his note came at breakfast time----" She looked at Esther wistfully. "You don't know how lovely it is to have some one of your very own," she said with unwonted sentimentality.
"I envy you," she said quietly. "But you'll be late if you stand rhapsodising here--be off!"
"I shan't be long--he's only asked me for lunch...."
"I have known lunches that lasted till tea-time," she said. "When there has been a great deal to talk about."
June went downstairs singing. During the last few days she had, as she would have expressed it, begun to discover herself all over again. Certainly the world had utterly changed, and was more like a fairy city than a place where it rained a great deal and where buses and taxicabs splashed pedestrians with mud.
Lydia met her at the foot of the stairs; she smiled at sight of the new hat.
"I was just coming up, Miss June," she said. "There's a letter for Miss Shepstone."
"I'll take it, and save you the trouble----" She became conscious all at once of the girl's admiring eyes, and blushed.
"Do you like my hat, Lydia?" She turned round for inspection.
Lydia admired enthusiastically, as she admired everything of June's, and forgetful of everything but the moment, June thrust the letter for Esther into her coat pocket and went out blissfully into the rain to meet George Rochester.
George was ardent; he went into rhapsodies over the hat; he forgot to eat his most excellent lunch, and hardly took his eyes off June.
"It's all so much waste of time this being engaged," he said with pretended annoyance. "Why don't we do the trick and get married? What are we waiting for? I'll take you to the States for a wedding trip."
June laughed, and protested blushingly that it was much too soon.
"I haven't thought about it," she declared, not quite truthfully. "There's tons of things to see to first. What about my business and Esther?"