these new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eye
met Friddy's, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave of
her parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence.

A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these new
surroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserable
past, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, the
revelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her more
accessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited the
girlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of which
he had seen so little before. At least so he fancied, and so excused
himself; it was delightful to find her referring to him as an older
friend; pleasant, indeed, to see that her family tacitly recognized it,
and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, "Friddy says you
can tell us," or "You and Friddy had better arrange it between you."
Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise,
owing to Lady Elfrida's frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jenny
could not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in serious
and apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter's wonder it was
the "Lady Elfrida" side of the English girl's nature that seemed to
have attracted Jenny, and not the playfulness of "Friddy," and he was
delighted to see that the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonship
of the tall Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Carter
or Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might have been amused,
too, at the importance of his own position in the military outpost,
through the arrival of the strangers. That this grave political
enthusiast and civilian should be on familiar terms with a young
Englishwoman of rank was at first inconceivable to the officers.
And that he had never alluded to it before seemed to them still more
remarkable.