CHAPTER V.
AT THE LAWN.
Life at the Lawn went by very smoothly for Mr.Sheldon's family.

Georgy was very happy in the society of a companion who seemed really to have a natural taste for the manufacture of pretty little head-dresses from the merest fragments of material in the way of lace and ribbon.

Diana had all that versatile cleverness and capacity for expedients which is likely to be acquired in a wandering and troubled life.

She had learned more in her three years of discomfort with her father than in all the undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her French at one _table d'hote_, her German at another; she had caught some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her friend's household.
In this she succeeded admirably.

Mrs.Sheldon found her daughter's society much more delightful now that the whole pressure of Charlotte's intellect and vitality no longer fell entirely upon herself.