Alda sprang up, stared about in consternation at the utter unlikeness
to the drawing-room in Kensington Palace Gardens, and exclaimed, 'Oh!
if Sibby had only come to take the children out! Take them away,
Lance.'
'Sibby will come presently, or I will take them to her,' whispered
Wilmet. 'I should like them just to have his blessing.'
'So many,' sighed Alda, but meantime Mr. Audley had seen that all
was right at the first coup d'oeil, had bent over Mrs. Underwood,
told her that the Bishop wished to call upon her, and asked her leave
to bring him up; and she smiled, looked pleased, and said, 'He is
very kind. That is for your Papa, my dears. You must talk to him, you
know.'
The Bishop came up almost immediately, and the perfect tranquillity
and absence of flutter fully showed poor Mrs. Underwood's old high-
bred instinct. She was really gratified when he sat down by her,
after greeting the three girls, and held out his hands to make
friends with the lesser ones, whom their sisters led up, Angela
submissive and pretty behaved, Bernard trying to hide his face, and
Stella in Wilmet's arms staring to the widest extent of eyes. The
sisters had their wish--the fatherless babes received the pastoral
blessing; and the Bishop said a few kind words of real sympathy that
made Mrs.
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