e said.

Mademoiselle was lurking on the stairway, in a new lace collar over her
old black dress. Lily recognized in the collar a great occasion, for
Mademoiselle was French and thrifty. Suddenly a wave of warmth and
gladness flooded her. This was home. Dear, familiar home. She had come
back. She was the only young thing in the house. She would bring them
gladness and youth. She would try to make them happy. Always before she
had taken, but now she meant to give.

Not that she formulated such a thought. It was an emotion, rather. She
ran up the stairs and hugged Mademoiselle wildly.

"You darling old thing!" she cried. She lapsed into French. "I saw the
collar at once. And think, it is over! It is finished. And all your nice
French relatives are sitting on the boulevards in the sun, and sipping
their little glasses of wine, and rising and bowing when a pretty girl
passes. Is it not so?"

"It is so, God and the saints be praised!" said Mademoiselle, huskily.

Grace Cardew followed them up the staircase. Her French was negligible,
and she felt again, as in days gone by, shut from the little world of
two which held her daughter and governess. Old Anthony's doing, that.
He had never forgiven his son his plebeian marriage, and an early
conversation returned to her. It was on Lily's first birthday and he had
made one of his rare visits to the nursery. He had brought with him a
pearl in a velvet case.

"All our women have their own pearls," he had said. "She will have her
grandmother's also when she marries. I shall give her one the first
year, two the second, and so on." He had stood looking down at the child
critically. "She's a Cardew," he said at last. "Which means that she
will be obstinate and self-willed." He had paused there, but Grace had
not refuted the statement. He had grinned. "As you know," he added. "Is
she talking yet?"

"A word or two," Grace had said, with no more warmth in her tone than
was in his.

"Very well. Get her a French governess. She ought to speak French before
she does English. It is one of the accomplishments of a lady. Get a good
woman, and for heaven's sake arrange to serve her breakfast in her room.
I don't want to have to be pleasant to any chattering French woman at
eight in the morning."

"No, you wouldn't," Grace had said.

Anthony had stamped out, but in the hall he smiled grimly. He did not
like Howard's wife, but she was not afraid of him. He respected her for
that. He took