'Little did I suppose that 'Clare' would
add to any one's difficulties,' she said, 'still less to yours, Aunt
Lilias.'
CHAPTER XX.
CONFESSIONS OF A COUNTRY MOUSE.
Here were the travellers at home again, and Mysie clinging to her
mother, with, 'Oh, Mamma!' and a look of perfect rest. They arrived at
the same time as Dolores had come, so late that Mysie was tired out,
and only half awake. She was consigned to Mrs. Halfpenny after her
first kiss, but as she passed along the corridor, a door was thrown
back, and a white figure sprang upon her. 'Oh, Mysie! Mysie!' and in
spite of the nurse's chidings, held her fast in an embrace of delight.
Dolores had been lying awake watching for her, and implored permission
at least to look on while she was going to bed!
Harry meanwhile related his experiences to his mother and Gillian over
the supper-table. The Butterfly's Ball had been a great success. He
had never seen anything prettier in his life. Plants and lights had
been judiciously disposed so as to make the hall a continuation of the
conservatory, almost a fairy land, and the children in their costumes
had been more like fairies than flesh and blood, pinafore and bread-
and-butter beings. There was a most perfect tableau at the opening of
the scenery constructed with moss and plants, so as to form a bower,
where the Butterfly and Grasshopper, with their immediate attendants,
welcomed their company, and afterwards formed the first quadrille, Lady
Phyllis, with Mysie and two other little girls staying in the house,
being the butterflies, and Lord Ivinghoe and three more boys of the
same ages, the grasshoppers, in pages' dresses of suitable colours.
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