_Monday afternoon_.
AT half past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room
was all full of flowers that Robert had sent--bunches and bunches of
violets and gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment,
and we did not speak. Then she said in a voice that trembled a little,
“Robert is so very dear to me--almost my own child --that I want him to
be happy, and you, too, Evangeline--I may call you that, may not I?”