"Come in, little sweetheart!" Isabel said. And she advanced with quickened steps to find Isabel lying propped on the sofa, looking at her, smiling up at her, with such a glory on her wasted face as made it "as it had been the face of an angel." In an instant Dinah was on her knees beside her, with loving arms clasping her close. "Oh, darling, I've only just heard. Are you better? Are you better?" she said yearningly. Isabel held her, and fondly kissed the upturned lips. "Why, I believe Scott has been frightening you," she said. "Silly fellow! Yes, dear. I am well--quite well." "You are sure?" Dinah insisted. "You are really not ill?" Isabel's smile had in it--had she but known it--a gleam of the Divine. "My dearest, all is well with me," she said. "I lay down for a little to please Scott. But I am going to get up now. Where have you been since _dèjeuner_? I missed you." Dinah clung closer, hiding her face. Instantly Isabel's arms tightened. The passionate tenderness of them thrilled her through and through. "Why, child, what has happened?" she whispered. "Tell me! Tell me!" But Dinah only hid her face a little deeper. "I don't know how," she murmured. There fell a silence. Then, under her breath, Isabel spoke. "My darling, whisper--just whisper! Who--is it?" And very, very faintly, at last Dinah made answer. "It--it is--Sir Eustace." There fell another silence, longer, deeper, than the first. Then Isabel uttered a short, hard sigh, and, stooping, kissed the bowed, curly head. "God bless and keep you always, dearest!" she said. Something in the words--or was it the tone?--pierced Dinah. She turned her face slightly upwards. "I--I was afraid you wouldn't be pleased," she faltered. "Do--do forgive me--if you can!" "Forgive you!" All the wealth of Isabel's love was in the words. "Why, darling, I have been wanting you for my own little sister ever since I first saw you." "Oh, have you?" Eagerly Dinah lifted her head. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks very flushed. "Then you are pleased?" she said earnestly. "You really are pleased?" Isabel smiled at her very sadly, very fondly. "My darling, if you are happy, I am more than pleased," she said. Yet Dinah was puzzled, not wholly satisfied. She received Isabel's kiss with a certain wistfulness. "I feel--somehow--as if I've done wrong," she said. "Yet--yet--Scott--" she halted over the name, uttering it shyly--"said he was--awfully pleased." "Ah! You have told Scott!" There was a sharp, almost a wrung, sound in Isabel's voice; but the next moment she controlled it, and spoke with steady resolution. "Then, my dear, you needn't have any misgivings. If you love Eustace and he loves you, it is the best thing possible for you both." She held Dinah to her again and kissed her; then very tenderly released her. "You must run and get ready, dear child. It is getting late."