e.

"Suppose Eileen and I walk back. You'll overtake us before we get
home. You two are such quick walkers."

Eileen's lips opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened at
Terry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap.

"I never _can_ see the good of walking about wet roads," she said
crossly. "It must be nice to live in a town, where there are dry
pavements, and people, and shops."

A robin rained out his little song from a bough above her head, and
behind the trees the sky broke up into magnificence--the sun looking
from under a great dun cloud suffused with his rays, while all below
him was a cool greenish bluish wash of sky, tender and delicate.

"You would not find that in a city, Eileen," Lady O'Gara said, pushing
away gently Stella's cold little hand that seemed to cling to hers.

"Make her trot, Terry," she said. "Her hands are cold as little frogs,
like the child's hands in Herrick's 'Grace for a Child.'

"Cold as paddocks though they be,
Still I lift them up to thee
For a benison to fall
On our meat and on us all."

She saw the sudden rush of joy to her son's face and she was a little
lonely. She felt that she was no longer first with Terry.

CHAPTER XIII

THE OLD LOVE

Sir Shawn was still out when they got back, after a brisk walk. The
laggard young people made no appearance for tea, though they waited a
while. Eileen grumbled discontentedly over everything being cold and
suggested a carelessness in Stella about other people's convenience.
The tea-cakes had been kept warm over a spirit-lamp, but she was in a
captious mood. Lady O'Gara wondered at the girl, who had sometimes
been embarrassingly effusive in the display of her affection. Had she
spoilt Eileen? or was the girl feeling sore and a little out of it?

The suggestion that Eileen might be feeling Terry's desertion of her
was enough to soften his mother's heart towards the captious girl, who
as soon as she had finished her tea,--and a very good tea she
made--went off to see how Margaret McKeon was progressing with her
skirt.

At the door she turned about.

"Do you think I might have a new evening frock, Cousin Mary?" she
asked. "My pink has gone out of fashion. There are such beautiful
blues in some patterns I have got from Liberty's: I could make it
myself, with Margaret's help. It would only need a little lace to trim
it, or some of that pearl trimming Liberty's use so much."

"Cer