He kept hold of her hands when she loosed them, and with a confused laugh and change of tone, asked “About the children? I met them just now. Might I bring my little cousins, Lady Stanton’s children, to see them? They want to meet.” “Sir Henry would not like it, though she might. Sir Henry is not like you.” “I know; he is _plus royalist que le roi_. But the children would. And they don’t deny me anything,” said Geoff, with a little laugh. He scarcely knew why this was--but it was so; nothing was denied to him; he was the _enfant gâté_ of Elfdale. Miss Musgrave was not, however, quite so complacent. She gave an assent which was cold and unwilling, and which quenched Geoff’s genial enthusiasm. He went back to his phaeton quite subdued and silent. “But I will see that little thing again,” he said to himself. In the mean time, while this conversation had been going on, Lilias had wandered forth alone into the Chase. Martuccia had gone before with Nello, while Lilias talked to the young man; and now the child followed dreamily, as she was in the habit of doing, her eyes abstracted, her whole being rapt in a separate consciousness, which surrounded her like an atmosphere of her own. She knew vaguely that the little brother and his nurse were in front of her; but the watchfulness of Lilias had relaxed, and she was not thinking of Nello. He was safe; here was no one who could interfere with him. She had taken up a branch of a tree which lay in her path and had caught her childish fancy, and with this she went on, using it like a pilgrim’s staff, and saying a kind of low chant, without words, to herself, to which the rough staff was made to keep time. What was she thinking of? everything, nothing; thought indeed was not necessary to the fresh soul in that subdued elation and speechless gladness. There was a vague sense in her mind of the brisk air, the sunshine, the blue sky, the floating clouds, all in one; but had the clouds been low upon the trees, and the air all damp instead of all exhilaration, it would have made little difference to Lilias. Her spring of unconscious blessedness was within herself. Her song was not music nor her movements harmony in any way that could be accounted for by rule; and indeed the low succession of sounds which came from her lips unawares, and to which her little steps and the stroke of the rough stick kept time, was more inartificial than even the twittering of the birds. A small, passive, embodied happiness went roaming along the rough, woodland path, with soft-glowing abstracted eyes that saw everything, yet nothing; with a little abstracted soul, all freshness and gladness, that took note of everything, yet nothing; a little pilgrim among life’s mysteries and wonders, herself the greatest wonder of all, throbbing with a soft consciousness, yet knowing nothing. Thus she went pacing on under the bare trees, and murmured her inarticulate chant, and kept time to it, a poet in being, though not in thought. Not