uld swim in her eyes as she said,
"It's not me; it's mamma."

And he answered, "Now, it is not you, but I, that is taking you to see
her."

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot!" was whistled out of the wood; and
the whistle Viola knew quite well enough to disarm me when I came to
the argument what was to become of her if she let such things be done
with her; and she had quite enough of Dermot's composition in her to
delight in a "little bit of naughtiness that wasn't too bad," and when
once she had resigned herself into the hands of her captor she enjoyed
it, and twittered like a little bird; and I believe Harold really did
it, just as he would have caught a rare bird or wild fawn, to please me.

"Then you were not frightened?" I said.

"Frightened? No. It was such fun! Besides, we heard how he mastered
the lion to save that poor little boy, and how he has looked after him
ever since, and is going to bind him apprentice. Oh, mind you show me
his skin--the lion's, I mean. Don't be tiresome, Lucy. And how he goes
on after the children's service with the dear little things. I should
think him the last person to be afraid of."

"I wish your mother saw it so."

Viola put on a comically wise look, and shook her head, as she said,
"You didn't go the right way to work. If you had come back in the
carriage, and consulted her, and said it was a mission--yes, a
mission--for you to stand, with a lily in your hand, and reform your
two bush-ranger nephews, and that you wanted her consent and advice,
then she would have let you go back and be good aunt, and what-not. Oh,
I wish you had, Lucy! That was the way Dermot managed about getting
the lodge at Biston. He says he could consult her into going out
hunting."

"For shame, Viola! O fie! O Vi!" said I, according to an old formula
of reproof.

"Really, I wanted to tell you. It might not be too late if you took to
consulting her now; and I can't bear being shut up from you. Everything
is grown so stupid. When one goes to a garden-party there are nothing
but Horsmans and Stympsons, and they all get into sets of themselves
and each other, and now and then coalesce, especially the Stympsons, to
pity poor Miss Alison, wonder at her not taking mamma's advice, and say
how horrid it is of her to live with her cousins. I've corrected that
so often that I take about with me the word 'nephews' written in large
text, to confute them, and I've actually taught Cocky to say, 'N