“Oh, of course we take your part,” cried Sophy. “We expect no end of fun from you, now you’ve come back. I am so sick of all those Barrack parties; but you will always have something going on, won’t you? And Reine, you must ask us. How delicious a dance would be in the hall! Bertie, remember you are to go to Ascot with _us_; you are _our_ cousin, not any one else’s. When one is related to the hero of the moment, one is not going to let one’s glory drop. Promise, Bertie! you go with us?” “I am quite willing, if you want me,” said Herbert. “Oh, if we want you!--of course we want you--we want you always,” cried Sophy. “Why, you are the lion; we are proud of you. We shall want to let everybody see that you don’t despise your poor relations, that you remember we are your cousins, and used to play with you. Don’t you recollect, Bertie? Kate and Reine used to be the friends always, because they were the steadiest; and you and me--we were the ones who got into scrapes,” cried Sophy. This, to tell the truth, was a very rash statement; for Herbert, always delicate, had not been in the habit of getting into scrapes. But all the more for this, he was pleased with the idea. “Yes,” he said half doubtfully, “I recollect;” but his recollections were not clear enough to enter into details. “Come, let us get into a scrape again,” cried Sophy; “it is such a lovely night. Let us send the carriage on in front, and walk. Come with us, won’t you? After a party, it is so pleasant to have a walk; and we have been such swells to-night. Come, Bertie, let’s run on, and bring ourselves down.” “Sophy, you madcap! I daresay the night air is not good for him,” said Kate. Upon which Sophy broke forth into the merriest laughter. “As if Bertie cared for the night air! Why, he looks twice as strong as any of us. Will you come?” “With all my heart,” said Herbert; “it is the very thing after such a tremendous business as Aunt Susan’s dinner. This is not the kind of entertainment I mean to give. We shall leave the swells, as you say, to take care of themselves.” “And ask me!” said bold Sophy, running out into the moonlight, which just then got free of the clouds. She was in high spirits, and pleased with the decided beginning she had made. In her white dress, with her white shoes twinkling over the dark cool greenness of the grass, she looked like a fairy broken forth from the woods. “Who will run a race with me to the end of the lane?” she cried, pirouetting round and round the lawn. How pretty she was, how gay, how light-hearted--a madcap, as her sister said, who stood in the shadow of the porch laughing, and bade Sophy recollect that she would ruin her shoes. “And you can’t run in high heels,” said Kate.