'But why don't you listen, dear Miss Lilias? You don't hear, I think,'
said Mrs. Sturk.
'I do hear, indeed; when did he go?' she asked, coldly enough.
'About half an hour ago,' Mrs. Sturk thought: and so, with a word or two
more, and a kissing of hands, the good lady turned, with her brood, up
the park lane, and Lily walked on to pay her visit to Mrs. Colonel
Stafford, feeling all the way a strange pang of anger and
disappointment.
'To think of his going away without taking leave of my father!'
And when she reached the hall-door of the King's House for a moment she
forgot what she had come for, and was relieved to find that good Mrs.
Strafford was in town.
There was then, I don't know whether there is not now, a little path
leading by the river bank from Chapelizod to Island-bridge, just an
angler's footpath, devious and broken, but withal very sweet and pretty.
Leaving the King's House, she took this way home, and as she walked down
to the river bank, the mortified girl looked down upon the grass close
by her feet, and whispered to the daisies as she went along--'No,
there's no more kindness nor friendliness left in the world; the people
are all cold creatures now, and hypocrites; and I'm glad he's gone.
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