swered Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good
deal of tact in it. "And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aerial.
You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away. But you must
go to sleep now."

Lady Agatha went with her to the door of the room to bid her good-night.
Her eyes looked like those of a child who might presently cry a little.
"Oh, Miss Fox-Seton," she said, in a very young voice, "you are so
kind!"

Chapter Four

The parts of the park nearest to the house already presented a busy
aspect when Miss Fox-Seton passed through the gardens the following
morning. Tables were being put up, and baskets of bread and cake and
groceries were being carried into the tent where the tea was to be
prepared. The workers looked interested and good-humoured; the men
touched their hats as Emily appeared, and the women courtesied
smilingly. They had all discovered that she was amiable and to be relied
on in her capacity of her ladyship's representative.

"She's a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton," one said to the other. "I never
seen one that was a lady fall to as she does. Ladies, even when they
means well, has a way of standing about and telling you to do things
without seeming to know quite how they ought to be done. She's coming to
help with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this morning, and she put
up all them packages of sweets yesterday with her own hands. She did 'em
up in different-coloured papers, and tied 'em with bits of ribbon,
because she said she knowed children was prouder of coloured things than
plain--they was like that. And so they are: a bit of red or blue goes a
long way with a child."

Emily cut bread-and-butter and cake, and placed seats and arranged toys
on tables all the morning. The day was hot, though beautiful, and she
was so busy that she had scarcely time for her breakfast. The household
party was in the gayest spirits. Lady Maria was in her most amusing
mood. She had planned a drive to some interesting ruins for the
afternoon of the next day, and a dinner-party for the evening. Her
favourite neighbours had just returned to their country-seat five miles
away, and they were coming to the dinner, to her great satisfaction.
Most of her neighbours bored her, and she took them in doses at her
dinners, as she would have taken medicine. But the Lockyers were young
and good-looking and clever, and she was always glad when they came to
Loche during her stay at Mallowe.