"I have read 'In Memoriam,' " she said coldly, "and all Tennyson's poems."
"I don't suppose you've read them all, dear. He wrote a great many, and even Aunt Marianne has never had time to read all through the book," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, unperturbed. "Put those white roses there, Zella, in front of poor grandpapa."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans patted the sweet-peas delicately once or twice with her thumb and finger.
"I always think it's the last little touch that makes all the difference in arranging flowers," she observed.
The last little touch did not seem to Zella to have made much appreciable difference to the sweet-peas, but they looked very nice against the massive silver of Archie's frame.
"Is that little cousin Archie?" she asked in reverent tones, knowing perfectly well that it was, but feeling instinctively that decorum forbade taking even the most obvious facts for granted when dealing with an In Memorial table.
"Yes, darling. You know poor dear little Cousin Archie was only five when he was taken away from us. Aunt Marianne can hardly bear to speak of it. Ah, Zella, life is very sad! but only a mother who has lost her child can really know what suffering means."
Zella felt rather resentful.
"Not that Aunt Marianne has not had many, many other sorrows too," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with some determination. "And that reminds me of something I wanted to do, and that you can help me over. Fetch the photograph of your dear, dear mother from the back drawing-room writing-table, Zella dear, and bring it here."
Zella fetched it, the tears rising to her eyes as she looked at the pretty, laughing pictured face.
Tears also rose to the eyes of Mrs. Lloyd-Evans as she gazed upon the photograph.
"It must go here," she said finally, clearing a space between poor grandpapa and little Archie. "But not in this red leather frame. Let me see. ..."
She gazed reflectively round the room.
"Let me have that photograph of Muriel as a baby. The frame is silver, and looks as though it would fit."
The photographs changed frames, and the one of Muriel, now surrounded by red leather, was sent to the back drawing-room writing-table; while Esmée de Kervoyou, silver-framed, took a place on the now crowded In Memorial table.
By this time the tears were streaming down Zella's face. Aunt Marianne said "My poor child" two or three times, kissed her very kindly, and sent her upstairs to He down and rest for a little before the others came in.
That evening, in her room, Zella, in floods of tears, withdrew her own copy of her mother's photograph from the flat leather travelling frame in which she had kept it ever since she could remember, and placed it in the middle of the mantelpiece, from whence she had carefully removed the clock and a few small china ornaments.
Then she took the little vase of flowers with which her dressing-table was kept supplied, and placed it in front of the photograph. There was a certain mournful pleasure in the aspect of the shrine when completed, and Zella's tears only broke out again next day upon discovering that an officious housemaid had replaced the clock and china ornaments upon her mantelpiece, and restored the vase of flowers to its original position on the dressing-table.
V
I HATE Sundays," growled James.
Muriel looked sincerely shocked, but was too much in awe of her brother to make any remonstrance.
Zella, conscious that the stronger part of her audience was with her, remarked airily: "Sunday is the most amusing day of the week in Paris."
She felt superior and cosmopolitan as she spoke.
"You won't find it that here," said James grimly, as they entered the dining-room for breakfast.
On the two preceding Sundays, Zella had not been taken to church with her cousins, because it was feared that it might "upset" her, and the day had been unmarked save by the absence of the Lloyd-Evans family during a couple of hours, which had enabled her to read a story-book alone in the schoolroom. Consequently Zella, who scarcely ever went to church at Villetswood, felt no desire whatever to fulfil her duties as a member of the Church of England.
But with characteristic adaptability she assented in grateful tones when Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, kissing her, said:
"Good-morning, Zella dear. This will be a nice fine Sunday for you to come to church, won't it?"
This subtle implication that the weather alone had been responsible for Zella's absence from church hitherto gave a lighter aspect to the case, and almost seemed, in some oblique manner, to glide over and ignore the existence of any possible cause for being "upset."
"Yes, Aunt Marianne," Zella answered readily.
"I hope that Crawford won't be so long-winded to-day," said Mr. Lloyd-Evans. "He was nearly twenty minutes in the pulpit last Sunday, saying the same thing over and over again, as far as I could make out."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, by glancing swiftly from her husband's face to James on one side of the table, and Muriel on the other, conveyed to Henry that he was not being quite careful in what he said before the children.
"Of course," he added hurriedly, "a sermon's a very good thing, and it's extraordinary where the poor chap does get all his ideas, considering all the sermons he must have to write in a year."
James looked contemptuous.
"Don't make faces, Jimmy," said his mother, shaking her head at him. Mrs. Lloyd-Evans was the only person who ever called James Jimmy, and Zella felt certain that he resented the diminutive.
He now coloured angrily all over his dark face, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, carefully looking away from him, gently changed the conversation by asking for the marmalade.
"I like sermons," volunteered Muriel, who also wanted to distract attention from her brother's obvious ill-temper.
"1£ they are good," Zella conceded, with the air of a critic.
She had only once or twice heard an English sermon at Villetswood, but her father had once taken her to hear a famous Dominioan preacher in Paris.
"The best sermon I ever heard," she added in a very grown-up voice, "was in Paris. Père La Vedée, you know."
"But he is a monk, isn't he?" said Muriel, round-eyed.
"That is one of the R.C. fellows, surely?" said Mr. Lloyd-Evans. Zella felt rather pleased at the small sensation she was creating, and replied airily:
"Oh yes. When we did go to church in Paris, it was always to a Catholic one. My aunt and grandmother are very devotes; in fact, Tante Stéphanie goes to church every single day."
"I thought French people had no religion," exclaimed Muriel innocently.
"Idiot," muttered James under his breath.
"French
