“Oh, no, no! I couldn't let you; I can't let you! I shall not know what to do if I keep you at home. Oh, don't leave it that way, please! I shall feel so badly about it--” “Why, we can both stay,” suggested Mr. Erwin, kindly. Lydia's lips trembled and her eyes glistened, and Mrs. Erwin said, “I'll go with you, Henshaw. I'll be ready in half an hour. I won't dress _much_.” She added this as if not to dress a great deal at the opera Sunday night might somehow be accepted as an observance of the Sabbath. XXIV. The next morning Veronica brought Lydia a little scrawl from her aunt, bidding the girl come and breakfast with her in her room at nine. “Well, my dear,” her aunt called to her from her pillow, when she appeared, “you find me flat enough, this morning. If there was anything wrong about going to the opera last night, I was properly punished for it. Such wretched stuff as _I_ never heard! And instead of the new ballet that they promised, they gave an old thing that I had seen till I was sick of it. You didn't miss much, I can tell you. How fresh and bright you _do_ look, Lydia!” she sighed. “Did you sleep well? Were you lonesome while we were gone? Veronica says you were reading the whole evening. Are you fond of reading?” “I don't think I am, very,” said Lydia. “It was a book that I began on the ship. It's a novel.” She hesitated. “I wasn't reading it; I was just looking at it.” “What a queer child you are! I suppose you were dying to read it, and wouldn't because it was Sunday. Well!” Mrs. Erwin put her hand under her pillow, and pulled out a gossamer handkerchief, with which she delicately touched her complexion here and there, and repaired with an instinctive rearrangement of powder the envious ravages of a slight rash about her nose. “I respect your high principles beyond anything, Lydia, and if they can only be turned in the right direction they will never be any disadvantage to you.” Veronica came in with the breakfast on a tray, and Mrs. Erwin added, “Now, pull up that little table, and bring your chair, my dear, and let us take it easy. I like to talk while I'm breakfasting. Will you pour out my chocolate? That's it, in the ugly little pot with the wooden handle; the copper one's for you, with coffee in it. I never could get that repose which seems to come perfectly natural to you. I was always inclined to be a little rowdy, my dear, and I've had to fight hard against it, without any help from _either_ of my husbands; men like it; they think it's funny. When I was first married, I was very young, and so was he; it was a real love match; and my husband was very well off, and when I began to be delicate, nothing would do but he must come to Europe with me. How little I ever expected to outlive him!” “You don't look very sick now,” began Lydia. “Ill,” said her aunt. “You must say ill. Sick is an Americanism.” “It's in the Bible,” said Lydia, gravely.