herself chose to ignore and secrete them. It was really unkind....

The door opened. A white figure slipped into the room through its mingled
lights, and found a stool beside Mrs. Penfold.

"Dear--are you all right?"

Mrs. Penfold stroked the speaker's head.

"Well, I thought I was going to have a headache this morning,
darling--but I didn't--it went away. Lydia! the Rector and Mrs. Deacon
have been here. _Why_ didn't you tell me you have been meeting Lord
Tatham at the rectory?"

Lydia laughed.

"Didn't I? Well, he's quite decent."

"Mrs. Deacon says he admired you. She's sure he did!" Mrs. Penfold
stooped eagerly toward her daughter, trying to see her face in the
twilight.

"Mrs. Deacon's a goose! You know she is, mother,--you often say so. I met
him first, of course, at the Hunt Ball. And you saw him there too. You
saw me dancing with him."

"But that was only once," said Mrs. Penfold, candidly. "I didn't think
anything of that. When I was a girl, if a young man liked me at a dance,
we went on till we made everybody talk. Or else, there was nothing in
it."