Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/297

Rh run away to play for an hour or so?” Mary asked, with a great effort to keep her manner unconscious at the last words, but feeling a look of guilt creep into her eyes.

“Go if you like, Mary. Please don’t be long. I want Lord Kelmscourt to know you better, to be able to tell his sister, who is a dear friend of mine, what each of my girls is like; he has known Jane and Florimel, when he brought them here in the car, but you he has seen but little,” Mrs. Garden answered her.

Lord Kelmscourt had laughed when Mary made her request. Now he arose, and crossed the room to hold the door open for the three young girls as they passed through it.

“I fancy that I know Miss Mary better than she imagines that I do,” he said, his pleasant blue eyes so full of mischievous kindness that Mary’s dropped before their gaze. “I think that she would be a generous foe,” he added, and Mary knew that her ruse, which her mother had accepted without criticism, was transparent to her guest.

“I’m not going, Mary,” Jane announced, after the three, with Win, were safely outside the door. “As if I didn’t know you asked Mrs. Moulton to call us up, and tell us to come over,