But, as she was going to sleep, lulled by this anticipation, two regrets sprang up within her mind, retarding for at least five minutes each her slumbers--one was the thought what a pity to have so many pretty things and never to go anywhere where they could be worn; the other was a keen, acute, stinging realization of Katie, and the many questions that little woman of the world would ask her. "How many balls were you at?" Lilias almost skipped out of bed in her impatience. "But I will not own to it. I will tell her a fib rather. I will almost tell her a _lee_," Lilias cried to herself. A _lee_ was perhaps worse than a fib; but it was not supposed to be so harsh a thing as a lie--at least upon Tayside. CHAPTER XXXIV. Next morning some further incidents occurred which disturbed Margaret, just recovering from the discomfiture of the preceding night, and plunged her into fresh anxiety. It was Jean that was the cause of one of these as of so many of her annoyances since they came to town--Jean, who could not contain her pleasure when amid all these crowds of unknown people she saw "a kent face." She had got so much into the way of doing this, and was so delighted with everybody that looked like home, ministers with their wives who had come up for a holiday after the Assembly, and little lairds, and professional persons of all classes, that, when it was possible, her sister had contrived to leave Jean at home when they went into the Row for their usual walk. But on this occasion it had not been possible to do so, and scarcely were they seated under their favourite tree, when Margaret with dismay heard the usual explosion. "Oh! Lilias, just look--it is certainly him; though I never would have thought of seeing him here." "Whom do you mean by _him_?" said Margaret. "And for goodness sake, Jean, where everybody is hearing you, do not exclaim like that. You will just be taken for an ignorant person that knows nobody." "And I'm sure they would not be far wrong that thought so," said Jean. "Yes, I was sure it was him: and glad, glad he will be to see us, for he seems not to have a creature to speak to. Dear me, Philip," she said, rising and stretching out her hand through a startled group who separated to let the friends approach each other, "who would have thought of seeing you here!" Philip Stormont's face lighted up. "I was looking for you," he said, in his laconic way. He had been strolling along with a vague stare, looking doubly rustic and home-spun and out of place; he had the very same cane in his hand with the knob that he used to suck at Murkley. "I knew you were here, and I was looking for you," he said. "And have you just arrived, and straight from Tayside? and how is your good mother and all our friends?" "My mother is away: and I've been away for the last three months," said Philip; "I've been out in the Mediterranean. There was little doing at home, and she was keen for me to go."