She was dressed in white,
and she looked no more than a child herself as she danced across the
grass, executing a fairy-like step as she came. The tiny girl's tinkling
laughter mingled with hers. Her little hands were fondly clasped about
the girl's neck; she looked down into her face with babyish adoration
while Eileen, the elder child, gazed upward with a more serious devotion.
General Melrose interrupted his narrative to look at the advancing trio.
"My Jove, Mrs. Bolton," he said, "but that's a pretty sight!"
Sheila also ceased very suddenly to converse with Bunny, while Saltash
made a scarcely perceptible movement as though he braced and restrained
himself in the same instant.
"The prettiest picture I've seen for years!" vowed the General. "How that
little Larpent girl changes! She is like a piece of quicksilver. There's
no getting hold of her. How old is she?"
"She is nearly twenty," said Bunny with the swiftness of ownership.
"Nearly twenty! You don't say so! She might be fourteen at the present
moment. Look at that! Look at it!" For Toby was suddenly whizzing like a
butterfly across the lawn in a giddy flight that seemed scarcely to
touch the ground, the little girl still upon her shoulder, the elder
child standing apart and clapping her hands in delighted admiration.
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