Lippa | Page 3

but there came a day when he tried to make himself hate her, and he did not succeed. Heigh ho!
'Mr Ponsonby,' Philippa is saying to him, 'do look at that dear little baby.'
With a start he comes back from the reverie into which he had sunk and answers at random 'Yes, she always acts perfectly--'
Philippa looks at him in astonishment, how could that child always act perfectly when it couldn't be more than three, but she says nothing and watches with interest the play. It is a sad piece of a woman wronged, the acting is splendid and more than once Miss Seaton feels a lump in her throat, but it is over at length and the curtain falls for the last time.
'Did you like it?' asks Ponsonby, helping her on with her cloak.
'Very much,' she replies, 'I have never been to an English theatre before, you know, but it was awfully sad.'
'Sadder if it had been the man wronged,' he says--
Philippa looks up with a laughing retort about each one for himself, but he seems so very grave that she refrains and wonders why he said that, but it is sometime before she finds out.
CHAPTER II
'A face in a crowd, a glance, a droop of the lashes, and all is said.'--MARION CRAWFORD.
It is some days later, and having a ball in prospect, Mrs Seaton has left Philippa to rest, whilst she goes on a round of visits; and Philippa, nothing loth, settles herself comfortably on the sofa with a book, and prepares to enjoy a lazy afternoon, but she is destined to interruption. The door suddenly bursts open and Teddy flies in, with 'Oh, Aunt Lippa, will you come into the Square with me. Marie's sister has come to see her and it would be kind to let them be together, don't you think--'
Lippa feels inclined to suggest that it would be just as kind to let her alone, but she refrains and merely says 'Well?'
'Will you?' asks the little boy, emphasizing his words by leaning heavily against his aunt. 'You see,' he continues, 'I do feel sometimes lonely, 'cos Marie's old and won't run, and I think you look as if you could--'
'I have done so in the course of my life,' she answers laughing, 'and I might be able to do so again.'
'Then you will try this afternoon, won't you?' this very coaxingly. 'Marie had better walk with us there, but it's such a little way we can come back by ourselves, can't we.'
'Yes; I should think so,' says Philippa.
'Then I'll just go and get my hat,' and Teddy, pausing at the door, adds. 'Do you know I think you're a very good aunt for a boy to have.'
'Indeed?' and Lippa laughs.
She finds it quite as pleasant sitting under a shady tree in the Square, as on the sofa in Brook Street; and her nephew does not require her to run, having found another companion in the person of a fat, very plain little girl; but after some time she has to go home, and Teddy having worried the life out of a stray cat, returns to his aunt, with a red, smutty face.
'Well,' he says, 'I am so hot, what shall I do to get cool--'
'Sit still,' suggests Lippa.
'Oh no, that'd make me heaps hotter, oh! there's Joseph,' and away flies Teddy. Joseph is an old gardener whose business it is to keep the paths in order, and of whom most of the square live in wholesome awe, not so Teddy, he loves him dearly and will talk as long as the old man has time to listen, this afternoon he is busy and Teddy soon returns again to the seat.
'He's such a dear old man,' he says, nodding in the direction the gardener has taken, 'a dear old man, but he has a terrible cough, and he doesn't know anything that will cure it.'
'Poor old man,' she answers, 'but really Teddy you must sit still, you are so hot, and jumping up and down like that shakes me all over.'
'Does it?' he says, innocently. 'I'll sit still if you'll tell me something, but perhaps I'd better tell you something first. Did you ever know that I had a sister?'
Lippa nods.
'Oh!' he says, 'well then perhaps you knew that her name was Lilian, and she was lost.'
'Yes,' replies Philippa, 'I knew all about her; you see your father is my brother, so of course I know all about you.'
'Not everything,' says Teddy, confidently, 'you don't know that I'm feeling rather empty, not 'xactly hungry but as if I could eat my tea.'
'Well, I dare say it is time to go in,' says his aunt, 'and if you will cease to sit on my feet I will get up.'
Teddy rises with alacrity, and not till they get