I'm told."

Mrs. Penfold sighed. But Lydia, changed the subject, entered upon a
discussion, so inventively artistic, of the new bonnet, and the new dress
in which her mother was to appear on Whitsunday, that when bedtime came
Mrs. Penfold had seldom passed a pleasanter evening.

After her mother had gone to bed, Lydia wandered into the moonlit garden,
and strolled about its paths, lost in the beauty of its dim flowers and
the sweetness of its scents. The spring was in her veins, and she felt
strangely shaken and restless. She tried to think of her painting, and
the prospect she had of getting into an artistic club, a club of young
landscapists, which exhibited every May, and was beginning to make a
mark. But her thoughts strayed perpetually.

So her mother imagined that Lord Tatham had only danced once with her at
the Hunt Ball? As a matter of fact, he had danced with her once, and
then, as dancing was by no means the youth's strong point, they had sat
out in a corner of the hotel garden, by the river, through four supper
dances. And if the fact had escaped the notice both of Mrs. Penfold and
Susy, greatly to Lydia's satisfaction, she was well aware that it had not
altogether escaped the notice of the neighbourhood, which kept an eager
watch on the doings of its local princeling in matters matrimonial.

And as to the various meetings at the rectory, Lydia could easily have
made much of them, if she had wished. She had come to see that they were
deliberately sought by Lord Tatham, and encouraged by Mrs. Deacon. And
because she had come to see it, she meant to refuse another invitation
from Mrs. Deacon, which was in her pocket--without consulting her mother.
Besides--said youthful pride--if Lord Tatham really wished to know them,