"And how are you, Mary?" Perior asked, turning to Miss Fairleigh. "You might have more color I think."
"Mary has a headache," said Lady Paton, the fluttering smile with which she had received her daughter's commendation fading, "I think she often has them and says nothing."
"You must play tennis with the Mappuck girls. You need more exercise," Perior continued. "They are at it vigorously from morning till night."
"Oh--really," Mary protested, "it is only Aunt Angelica's kindness--I am quite well."
"And no one must dare be otherwise in this house," Camelia added. "Go and play tennis at once, Mary. I don't approve of headaches." Mary smiled a modest, decorous little smile.
"Nor do I," said Perior, and then as Lady Paton had taken a chair near her work-table, he sat down beside her, while Mary sank from her temporary prominence, and, near the window, took up some sewing. Camelia remained near her, looking out at the smooth green stretches of the lawn, lending half an ear to the talk behind her, but keeping up at the same time a kindly little flow of question and reply with her cousin. How were the flowers getting on? and the hay making? Had she seen that morning her poor village people? The questions were rather perfunctory; and while she spoke Camelia aided the faltering march of a burnished little beetle up the window, and helped him out on to the fragrant branch of syringa that brushed the pane.
"I hear that you are embarked on a season of parties," said Perior to Lady Paton.
"Yes, Camelia has so many friends. She thought she would like it here if she could keep it gay with people."
"You will like it too. You were lonely last winter."
"Ah, Camelia was not here; but I was not lonely, Michael; you were too kind for that; and I had Mary. You don't think Camelia looks thin, Michael?" She had always called the family friend by his Christian name. Perior had Irish ancestry. "She has been doing so much all spring--all winter too; I can't understand how a delicate girl can press so many things into her life--and studying with it too; she must keep up with everything."
"Yes, she is really so intellectual, Michael. You don't think she looks badly?"
"She is as pretty a little pagan as ever," said Perior, glancing at Miss Paton.