She rubbed her cheek confidingly against Sara's.
"You are a pet angel, Sara, my own," she said.

"I'm so glad you adopted us.

Now I can go to the Herricks' tea-party this afternoon without having that twenty pounds nagging at the back of my mind all the time.

I suppose"-- glancing at the clock--"it's time we put on our glad rags.

The Lavender Lady said she expected us at four." Half-an-hour later, Molly reappeared, looking quite impossibly lovely in a frock of the cheapest kind of material, "run up" by the local dressmaker, and very evidently with no other thought "at the back of her mind" than of the afternoon's entertainment.
The tea-party was a small one, commensurate with the size of the rooms at Rose Cottage, and included only Sara and Molly, Mrs.Maynard, and, to Sara's surprise, Garth Trent.
As she entered the room, he turned quietly from the window where he had been standing looking out at the Herricks' charming garden.
"Mr.Trent"-- Miss Lavinia fluttered forward--"let me introduce you to Miss Tennant." The Lavender Lady's pretty, faded blue eyes beamed benevolently on him.
She was so _very_ glad that "that poor, lonely fellow at Far End" had at last been induced to desert the solitary fastnesses of Monk's Cliff, but as she was simply terrified at the prospect of entertaining him herself--and Audrey Maynard seemed already fully occupied, chatting with Miles--she was only too thankful to turn him across to Sara's competent hands.
"We've met before, Miss Lavinia," said Trent, and over her head his hazel eyes met Sara's with a gamin amusement dancing in them.