<SPAN name="chap27"></SPAN>
<h3>Chapter Twenty Seven.</h3>
<h4>Esmeralda’s Visit.</h4>
<p>Miss Munns was greatly excited to hear of the expected visit, and busied herself taking the holland covers off the drawing-room chairs, and displaying the best antimacassars in the most advantageous position.</p>
<p>Sylvia longed to introduce a little disorder into the painful severity of the room, but it would have distressed her aunt if she had moved a chair out of the straight, or confiscated one of the books which were ranged at equal distances round the rosewood table, and, as it was one of her resolves not to interfere with domestic arrangements, she shrugged her shoulders resignedly, and hoped that Esmeralda might be as unnoticing of her surroundings as were her brothers and sisters.</p>
<p>At four o’clock a carriage drove up to the door, and Esmeralda alighted, clad from head to foot in black, as Sylvia noticed at the first quick glance. She was waiting in the little drawing-room, and scarcely was the door opened when the tall figure was at her side, and her hands were crushed with affectionate fervour. She looked up, and was startled by the beauty of the face above her, startled as even Esmeralda’s brothers and sisters were at times, when as now the grey eyes were misty with tears, and the lips all sweet and tremulous.</p>
<p>“If I’d known—if I’d had the slightest idea he was ill, I would rather have killed myself than have behaved as I did! Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t notice! I was hateful to you when you were ill, too, poor creature, and my sister’s guest. I told Geoff all about it. I hate telling him when I do wrong, so I did it just as a penance, and he was so vexed with me. Do you know why I spoke as I did? Did you guess the reason?”</p>
<p>Sylvia shrank into herself with an uneasy foreboding, for Esmeralda was an impetuous creature, who might be expected to be as undisguised in her penitence as in offence.</p>
<p>“Oh, please don’t say anything more about it!” she cried hurriedly. “It was very trying for you finding me there when you came over for a visit. I have forgotten all about it, if there is anything to forget; and now there’s this lovely miniature. How can I thank you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, that is nothing—that’s nothing!” cried Esmeralda, waving aside the subject, and insisting upon a full confession of her fault. “I was jealous of you—that is what it was—jealous because they all seemed so fond of you, and I wanted their attention for myself. It was horribly mean, because I have Geoff and the boy, and it is only natural that they should want their own interests.</p>
<p>“I daresay Pixie has told you how father spoiled me all my life, and Bridgie gave way to me until it seemed natural to think first of myself. But I don’t now. I think of Geoffrey and the boy, and I’m trying to be better for their sake. Geoff says he got me only just in time. He is rather stern with me sometimes, do you know. He doesn’t say much—perhaps I don’t give him the chance—but his face sets, and his eyes are so large and grave. I can’t bear it when he looks at me like that, because, as a rule, you know,”—she gave a soft, happy little laugh—“he loves me so frightfully much, and we are so happy together. I ought to want every girl to be as happy as I am, and I do—really I do.</p>
<p>“In a month or two, when we are home at Knock, will you come and stay with me, Sylvia, and learn to be fond of me too? I’m rather lonely over there now that all the others have left, and I have not many girl-friends. The one I cared for most will be engaged soon, I think, and the man lives abroad, so she may be leaving the neighbourhood. It is not settled yet, but I think Mrs Burrell will give in.”</p>
<p>She stared ostentatiously through the window, and Sylvia blushed, and had some ado not to smile at this very transparent intimation of hostility withdrawn.</p>
<p>“Thank you so much! I’d love to come,” she said simply; and then the two girls talked quietly together for a few minutes before Miss Munns came in and dispensed tea and reminiscences of all the grand people whom she had ever met, with a view of impressing her visitor, who, of course, was not impressed at all, but secretly amused, as listeners invariably are under such circumstances.</p>
<p>Esmeralda was just rising to leave when a loud rat-tat at the knocker made Sylvia’s heart leap in expectation; and the next moment Jack came into the room in his most easy and assured manner.</p>
<p>“I thought I would come across for my sister, and inquire how Miss Trevor was after her journey,” he announced; and once more Sylvia smiled to herself as she noted how Esmeralda immediately plunged into animated conversation with Miss Munns, to keep her attention engrossed at the opposite end of the room.</p>
<p>Jack O’Shaughnessy stood by the window, and looked down upon his little love with tender, dissatisfied eyes.</p>
<p>“I say,” he said softly, “I can’t stand this sort of thing! Two minutes’ talk, with two other people in the room. How much longer do you suppose I can stand this?”</p>
<p>“You have had only one day yet. It’s too soon to complain. You may have seven years!” retorted Sylvia saucily; but at the bottom of her heart she was glad that he found it difficult to be patient.</p>
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