The buoyancy and freshness, the girlish vivacity of Miss
Halliday's manner, were rapidly giving place to habitual listlessness.
"Are you tired, dear?" she repeated, anxiously; and Mrs. Sheldon looked
round from her contemplation of the bonnets.
"No, Di, dearest, not tired; but--I don't feel very well this afternoon."
This was the first confession which Charlotte Halliday made of a sense of
weakness and languor that had been creeping upon her during the last two
months, so slowly, so gradually, that the change seemed too insignificant
for notice.
"You feel ill, Lotta dear?" Diana asked.
"Well, no, not exactly ill. I can scarcely call it illness; I feel rather
weak--that is really all."
At this point Mrs. Sheldon chimed in, with her eyes on a passing bonnet
as she spoke.
"You see, you are so dreadfully neglectful of your papa's advice, Lotta,"
she said, in a complaining tone. "Do _you_ like pink roses with mauve
areophane, Diana? I do not. Look at that primrose tulle, with dead
ivy-leaves and scarlet berries, in the barouche. I dare say you have not
taken your glass of old port this morning, Charlotte, and have only
yourself to thank if you feel weak."
"I did take a glass of port this morning, mamma. I don't like it; but I
take it every morning."
"Don't like old tawny port, that your papa bought at the sale of a bishop
of somewhere? It's perfectly absurd of you, Lotta, to talk of not liking
wine that cost fifteen shillings a bottle, and which your papa's friends
declare to be worth five-and-thirty.
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