les.

"I know which of you is which! Lilias, Dulcie, Roland, Bevis, Clifford!"
she declared, shaking hands with each. "I'm very rich to have five new
cousins all at once! To-morrow you must show me everything, the rabbits
and the dogs, and the tame jackdaw! Oh yes! I've been hearing about them
and about you! Cousin Clare told me just what you would be like. I kept
asking her questions the whole way!"

She spoke prettily, and without a trace of a foreign accent; her manner
was warm and friendly. She looked, indeed, as if she would like to kiss
her new relations. She was so entirely different from what the Ingletons
had expected, that in their utter amazement they could think of nothing
to say in reply, and stood gazing at her in embarrassed silence. Cousin
Clare saved the situation.

"Carmel, child, you're tired out!" she decreed. "I'm going to take you
straight upstairs and put you to bed. Thirty-six hours of traveling is
too much for anybody, and you never slept in the train. Come along! You
must make friends with your cousins to-morrow."

Long afterwards, when Dulcie tried to analyze her first impressions of
the new-comer, she realized that what struck her most was the extreme
charm of her personality. We have all possibly gone through a similar
psychic experience of meeting somebody against whom we had conceived a
bitter prejudice, and finding our intended hatred suddenly veer round
into love. The effect is like stepping out into what you imagine will be
a blizzard, and finding warm sunshine. The little mistress of the Chase
was very weary with her long journey, but, when at last she was
sufficiently rested to be shown round her demesne, she made her royal
progress with an escort of half-fascinated cousins.

"You'll like to see your property," Lilias began shyly, leading the way
into the garden.

"_Please_ don't call it mine. I want you all to understand, at the very
beginning, that it's still your home, and I don't wish to take it from
you. I have my own dear home in Sicily, and I hope to go back there some
day. While I'm in England, let me be your visitor. That's all I want. I
can't bear to think that I'm taking anybody's place, or anything that
ought to belong to some one else. If only Mother were here, she'd
explain properly."

"But it _is_ yours, Leslie!" objected Dulcie.

"In a way yes, but in another way, no! It can be mine and yours at the
same time. And please will you call me Carmel? Leslie is a bo