She started a little at Edgar’s entrance, and ‘blushed celestial red, love’s proper hue,’ much to the delight of her lover, who hung out a rosy flag on his own side, and looked as shy as any school-girl. He shook hands with Madoline, and then went straight to the piano, and tried by a tender pressure of Daphne’s hand to express something of the rapture that was flooding his soul. ‘I have seen your father, dearest,’ he said in her ear, as she went on lightly playing little bits of Schumann. ‘He thoroughly approves—he is glad.’ ‘Then I am glad if he is glad, and you are glad, and Madoline is glad,’ answered Daphne, with a smile in which there was a subtle mockery that escaped Edgar’s perception. ‘What can I do better than please everybody?’ ‘You have made me the happiest man in creation.’ ‘Does not every young man say that when he is engaged?’ asked Daphne laughingly. ‘I believe it is a formula. And when he has been married a year the happiest man in creation takes to quarrelling with his wife. However, I hope we may not quarrel. I will try to be as good to you as you have been to me; and that is saying a good deal.’ They lingered by the piano, Edgar pouring forth vague expressions of his delight, his gratitude, his intoxication of bliss. Daphne playing a little, and listening a little, with her eyes always on the keys, offering her lover only the lashes, dark brown with sparks of gold upon their tips, for his contemplation. But such lashes, and such eyelids, and such a lovely droop of the small classic head, were enough to satisfy a lover’s eye for longer than Edgar was required to look at them. By-and-by, when he had exhausted a lover’s capacity for talking nonsense, he made a sudden dash at the practical. ‘I want you to come and see my mother, Daphne.’ ‘Have you told her?’ ‘No, not yet. There has been no opportunity, you know.’ This was hardly true, since, seated opposite Mrs. Turchill at the breakfast-table that morning, Edgar had vainly endeavoured to frame the sentence which should announce his bliss, and had found an awkwardness in the revelation which required to be surmounted at more leisure. ‘I am going to tell her directly I go home. It was better to see Sir Vernon first, don’t you know. And I want you and Madoline to come over to tea this afternoon. You could drive over to Hawksyard with Daphne after luncheon, couldn’t you, Madoline?’ he asked, going over to the work-table. ‘It would be so good of you, and would please my mother so very much.’ ‘Would it?’ asked Lina, smiling up at him. ‘Then it shall be done.’