"It will do," said Cheiron.

"Aphrodite--Aphrodite," she repeated it over and over. "It must mean
kind and tender, and soft and sweet, and beautiful and glorious, and
making you think of noble things, and making you feel perfectly happy
and warmed and comforted and blessed. Is it all that?"

"It could be--and more," said Cheiron.

"Then I will name her so."

After this there was a long silence. Mr. Carlyon would not interrupt
what was evidently a serious moment to his little friend. He waited, and
then presently he turned the channel of her thoughts by asking her if
she thought he might call on her Aunts that afternoon.

Halcyone hesitated a second.

"We hardly ever have visitors. Aunt Ginevra has always said one must not
receive what one cannot return, and they have no carriage or horses now,
so they never see anyone. Aunt Roberta would, but Aunt Ginevra does not
let her, and she often says in the last ten years they have quite
dropped out of everything. I do not know what that means altogether,
because I do not know what there was to drop out of. I have scarcely
ever been beyond the park, and there do not seem to be any big houses
for miles--do there?--except Wendover, but it is shut up; it has been
for twenty years."

"Then you think the Misses La Sarthe might not receive me?"