“In Pen’yllan?” cried Georgie. “All winter, Lisbeth?” “At Pen’yllan? Here? With us?” cried Miss Millicent, and Miss Hetty, and Miss Clarissa, in chorus. “Yes,” answered Lisbeth, in her most non-committal fashion. “At Pen’yllan, Aunt Hetty. Here, Aunt Millicent. With you, Aunt Clarissa.” The Misses Tregarthyn became quite pale. They glanced at each other, and shook their heads, ominously. This portended something dreadful, indeed. “My love,” faltered Miss Clarissa. “What?” interposed Lisbeth. “Won’t you let me stay? Are you tired of me? I told you that you would be, you know, before I came.” “Oh, my dear!” protested Miss Clarissa. “How can you? Tired of you? Sister Hetty, sister Millicent! Tired of her?” “We only thought, my love, that it would be so dull to one used to--to the brilliant vortex of London society,” ended Miss Millicent, rather grandly. “But if I think that it will not,” said Lisbeth. “I am tired of the ‘brilliant vortex of London society.’” She got up from her chair, and went and stood by Georgie, at the window, looking out. “Yes,” she said, almost as if speaking to herself, “I think I should like to stay.” The end of it was, that she did stay. She wrote to Mrs. Despard, that very day, announcing her intention of remaining. Georgie, in packing her trunks, actually shed a few silent tears among her ruffs and ribbons. To her mind, this was a sad termination to her happy visit. She knew that it must mean something serious, that there must be some powerful motive at the bottom of such a resolution. If Lisbeth would only not be so reserved. If it was only a little easier to understand her. “We shall miss you very much, Lisbeth,” she ventured, mournfully. “Not more than I shall miss you,” answered Lisbeth, who at the time stood near, watching her as she knelt before the box she was packing. Georgie paused in her task, to look up doubtfully. “Then why will you do it?” she said. “You--you must have a reason.” “Yes,” said Lisbeth, “I have a reason.” The girl’s eyes still appealed to her; so she went on, with a rather melancholy smile: “I have two reasons--perhaps more. Pen’yllan agrees with me, and I do not want to go back to town yet. I am going to take a rest. I must need one, or Aunt Clarissa would not find so much fault with my appearance. I don’t want to ‘go off on my looks,’ before my time, and you know they are always telling me I am pale and thin. Am I pale and thin, Georgie?” “Yes,” confessed Georgie, “you are,” and she gave her a troubled look. “Then,” returned Lisbeth, “there is all the more reason that I should rusticate. Perhaps, by the spring, I shall be red and fat, like Miss Rosamond Puddifoot,” with a little laugh. “And I shall have taken to tracts, and soup-kitchens, and given up the world, and wear a yellow bonnet, and call London a ‘vortex of sinful pleasure,’ as she does. Why, my dear Georgie, what is the matter?”