Again the ladies cried out. To thwart the invalid--’twas impossible. Was the girl mad? Nay, she would do as they bid? ’Twas well, then. Lady Julia, so kind was she, would help to clothe her in some better apparel and make her fit to present herself. The while the Lady Alethea would return to her post of assiduous nurse, and inform his lordship of Pomona’s speedy attendance. Pomona gave herself into their hands. Lord Blantyre lay on a couch in the sunshine. A fountain played merrily to his right; to his left his sister sat demurely at embroidery. In spite of her ladyship’s melancholy account, the patient seemed to have gained marvelously in strength. But he was in no better humor with the world than on the last day of his stay at the farm. He tossed and fretted among his rich cushions. “She tarries,” he said, irritably, for the twentieth time. “You are all in league to plague me. Why did you tell me she was coming?” “My good brother,” answered the fair embroideress, tilting her head to fling him the family sneer, “I pray you curb your impatience, for yonder comes your siren.” Here was Julia, indeed, undulating toward them, and, after her, Pomona! Lord Blantyre sat up suddenly and stared. Then he fell back on his cushions and shot a look at Alethea, before which she quailed. Stumbling in high heels that tripped her at every step, she who had been wont to move free as a goddess; scarce able to breathe in the laced bodice that pressed her form out of all its natural shapeliness, and left so much of her throat bare that the white skin was all crimson in shame down to the borrowed kerchief; her artless, bewildered face raddled with white and red, her noble head scarcely recognizable through the bunching curls that sat so strangely each side of it--what Pomona was this? “Here is your kind nurse,” fluted Lady Julia. “She had a fancy to bedizen herself for your eyes. I thought ’twould please you, my lord, if I humored the creature.” “Everyone is to be humored here,” thought poor Pomona, vaguely. “Come to his lordship, child,” bade Julia, her tones tripped up with laughter. Pomona tottered yet a pace or two, and then halted. Taller even than the tall Lady Julia, the lines of her generous womanhood took up the silken skirt to absurd brevity, exposing the awkward-twisting feet. Nymph no longer was she, but a huge painted puppet. Only the eyes were unchanged, Pomona’s roe-deer eyes, grieving and wondering, shifting from side to side in dumb pleading. Truly this was an excellent jest of Lady Julia Majendie’s! It was strange that Lady Alethea, bending closer and closer over her work, should have no laughter left after that single glance from her brother’s eyes; and that Lord Blantyre himself should show such lack of humorous appreciation. There was a heavy silence. Pomona tried to draw a breath to relieve her bursting anguish, but in vain--she was held as in a vise. Her heart fluttered; she felt as if she must die.