It was as well for Mr. Standen that Miss Charing had been bred in the habits of the strictest economy, for his sister, entering wholeheartedly into his amiable plot to provide Kitty with a much more expensive wardrobe than had been contemplated by Mr. Penicuik, would have had no scruple in recommending the purchase of at least half-a-dozen of the ravishing gowns displayed by Mme Fanchon. It had not occurred to her that Miss Charing might demand to be told the prices of the dresses she looked at, for it had already been agreed between them that the dressmakers and the milliners should be instructed to send in their bills to Lady Buckhaven, whom they knew so well; and nothing was more unlikely than that Mme Fanchon would of her own volition mention anything so ungenteel as a price. But from the moment of alighting from the barouche in Bruton Street, and entering the portals of one of London’s most renowned modistes, Kitty was suspicious. Ushered into a showroom carpeted with Aubusson and furnished with gilded, spindle-legged chairs, and a multitude of tall mirrors, she felt unhappily certain that any gown exhibited in such opulent surroundings would be quite above her touch. She tried to whisper as much in Meg’s ear, but Meg only laughed, and said: “Fiddle!” Then the great Mme Fanchon herself appeared, all smiles and curtsies, and, having been informed that she was to have the privilege of supplying her ladyship’s cousin with several dresses, suitable for a young lady of quality about to come-out into the world, at once went into conference with my lady, while Kitty stared with round, envious eyes at a grand ball-dress of lace over white satin, which was displayed upon a stand at one end of the room. She had not fully assimilated its glories” when Meg rejoined her, but Meg, observing the direction of her gaze, said: “Not lace! When you are married you may wear such a dress, but Mama would never allow me to do so when I came out.”
“Oh, no! I was only thinking how beautiful it is! I am sure it must be most dreadfully dear!”
“Well, yes!” assented Meg, with a tiny giggle. She had purchased just such a grande-toilette herself, not three months ago, and it had taken all the cajolery of which she was capable to reconcile the most indulgent husband alive to a staggering demand from Mme Fanchon for three hundred pounds. “Lace is a little dear! But girls who are just out, you know, always wear muslins, and cambrics, with perhaps one or two silken gowns for important occasions. Now, don’t get into a pucker, Kitty! We shall contrive famously, I promise you! I thought it best to tell Fanchon you were my cousin, since you don’t mean to advertize your engagement quite at once. And—you won’t take a pet?—I said that you had lived very retired, with a strict and old-fashioned guardian, because I could see that she was staring to see such an outmoded bonnet and pelisse. She perfectly understands —and it is quite true! I don’t mean that I wouldn’t have said it had it not been true, for I hope I am not such a zany, but it gives one the most agreeable feeling to know that one really has spoken the truth!”
There was no time for more; Mme Fanchon, despatching two underlings with certain instructions, came up to the ladies, and at once began to discuss with Meg such mysteries as French bead edges, worked muslin jaconet, spider-gauze, ribbon-braces, and Zephyr cloaks. And then Miss Charing tumbled headlong into the world of make-believe which had for so long beguiled her leisure hours; for the underlings came back carrying dresses—dresses for every occasion, figured, embroidered, flounced, and braided; adorned with blond lace, or knots of ribbon; some embellished with spangles, some with pearl rosettes, some with silver fringes. They were the garments Miss Charing had dreamed of, and never thought to wear; and it was small wonder that she released her clutch on the workaday world. The season had not begun, and no other clients had invaded the showroom: Lady Buckhaven decreed that the gowns should be tried-on immediately. Kitty, standing before a mirror, first in an elegant walking-dress of amber crape, then in a demie-toilette of mulled muslin, next in a satin ball-dress, with a pelerine of fluted velvet cast over her shoulders, saw herself transformed, and lost her head.
But she came to earth too soon for Lady Buckhaven. Just as her ladyship was saying: “Then we are decided, are we not, love, on the sea-green, and the Berlin silk with the floss trimming? And the Merino pelisse, with the round cape?” she turned her head towards Madame, and said in a voice of strong resolution: “What, if you please, is the price of this dress I have on?”
Madame, unaware of Lady Buckhaven’s frantic attempt to catch her eye, told her. The make-believe world collapsed in ruins; one last glance Kitty allowed herself at the mirrored vision of a modish young lady in rose-pink gauze; then she turned away, and said, with a quivering lip: “I am afraid it is too dear.”
Madame, looking towards Lady Buckhaven too late, realized that she had vexed one of her more valued patronesses, read the message in those dagger-darting blue eyes, and exerted herself to make a recover. Gently turning Miss Charing to face the mirror again, she pointed out to her the many excellencies of the gown, and in a spate of volubility contrived to say that it was more economical to purchase one expensive dress than three cheaper ones, that the sight of mademoiselle in such a toilette must infallibly strike the beholder like a coup de foudre, that she believed she had confused its price with that of the cerulean blue satin which had not become mademoiselle, and, finally, that to oblige so good a customer as miladi she would make a reduction.
Kitty allowed herself to be persuaded. Though she must rigorously curtail further expenditure, she could not bring herself to spare one person at least this clap of thunder. If she went in rags for the rest of her days, Mr. Westruther should see this lovely vision in rose-pink, and know what he had allowed to slip through his careless, cruel fingers.
And after that it seemed as though perhaps she could afford to buy the sea-green walking-dress, and the Merino pelisse to wear over it—neither as expensive as she had feared they must be. But she retained enough sanity to shake her head when it was pointed out to her that she would bitterly regret it if she neglected to buy a half-dress of Italian crape.
“Kitty,” said Lady Buckhaven, struck by a brilliant idea, “if you do not mean to buy it, I will, because it is just what will suit me! Only I thought perhaps I ought not, because only last week I purchased one in bronze-green, which Mama says is a colour I should never wear, so of course I shan’t, because no one knows better than Mama what truly becomes one. But I have just had the most famous notion! I will give you the bronze-green, and buy this one for myself, and that will make everything right!”
In this very reasonable way the problem was solved to everyone’s satisfaction; Madame promised to deliver the hand-boxes in Berkeley Square that very day; and the ladies, each feeling that she had practised a piece of clever economy, sallied forth to visit a series of milliners and haberdashers. Kitty, who had been thinking deeply, astonished her hostess by saying that if she might be put in the way of visiting a linen-draper she would buy such materials as she liked, and contrive to make herself gowns in imitation of what she had seen at Fanchon’s. Like any other young lady of gentle breeding, Meg could embroider prettily, and had even been known to hem a seam, but the idea of making gowns for herself had never so much as occurred to her. When she learned that Kitty had been in the habit of doing so for years she began to think that life at Arnside must be bleak indeed, and in a rush of warm-heartedness said: “Well, you shan’t do so in my house, you poor thing! Mallow—my dresser, you know!—shall find a sewing-woman to do it for you. The cost will be trifling—I know, because Mama employs one to make up dresses for Caroline and Fanny. Good gracious, she would be the very person! I will dash off a note to her directly we return home! Should you like to drive immediately to a linen-draper’s, or are you tired? There is Layton and Shear’s, or Newton’s, in Leicester Square, which I believe is tolerably good. Or stay! Let us go to Grafton House! Emily Calderbeck told me that you would scarcely credit the things one may purchase there for the merest song! Poor creature, she is forced to embrace the most shocking expediencies, for Calderbeck, you know, is run quite off his legs! And the miserable thing is that he sets it down to Emily’s want of management and economy, when all the town knows he has lost thousands at play! I must own that I am glad Buckhaven is not a gamester. Only think how uncomfortable it would be never to know whether you were rich, or ruined! I tell Jack that if ever he is married I shall pity his wife—just rallying him, you know!”
“Is Jack a gamester?” asked Kitty. “I—I didn’t know! That is—Freddy said so, but—”
“Oh, yes! I don’t mean to say that he is for ever in some horrid hell, like Calderbeck, but he plays at Watier’s, where the stakes are shockingly high; and he bets on all the races—in fact, he is what Freddy calls a Go amongst the Goers! Shall we tell my coachman to drive to Grafton House?”
“Oh, yes, please—if you should not dislike it!” Kitty waited until the order had been given, and then said, in a disinterested voice: “Is Jack in London? I have not set eyes on him this age!”
“Of course, you must know him better than you know any of us,” said Meg. “He is for ever visiting my great’Uncle, isn’t he? Do you like him? I hope you may, for he is often in Berkeley Square. Only pray don’t say so to Mama! She would not like it above half, because he has such a shocking reputation! It is all nonsense, of course, and Buckhaven makes no objection. Naturally one knows where to draw the line, and, besides, it is perfectly proper to have one’s cousin to visit one!”
Miss Charing was still digesting this when the barouche drew up outside Grafton House.
It had been one of Meg’s schoolday amusements to visit the Pantheon Bazaar, under the careful chaperonage of her governess, and to spend her weekly pin-money in that astonishing mart; but ladies of high fashion did not commonly do their shopping at Grafton House, and she bad never before entered its portals. She was inclined to be suspicious of an emporium patronized by such unfortunates as poor Emily Calderbeck, but after a very few minutes spent in looking at the wares for sale in the building she succumbed to the eternal feminine passion for Bargains, and became quite as enthusiastic as Kitty over silk stockings at only twelve shillings the pair, muslins at three shillings and sixpence the yard, and really elegant bugle trimming at the ridiculously low figure of two shillings and fourpence.
The only drawback to the shop was its popularity: it was crowded, customers being obliged to wait at the various counters for as much, sometimes, as twenty minutes before receiving attention. An overheard interchange between two women desirous of buying black sarsnet informed Lady Buckhaven and Miss Charing that more knowledgeable persons made a point of visiting Grafton House before breakfast; by eleven o’clock, it appeared, the emporium was always as full as it could hold.
“Shall we do that?” Meg whispered. “Only I don’t think I could! Perhaps we had better stay, now we are here! My dear, look! Irish poplin, at six shillings the yard! Not that I should want poplin, but still—!”
It was while they were awaiting their turn to be served at one of the counters that Kitty’s eyes alighted on the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. She could not help staring, for such gleaming golden ringlets, such deep blue eyes, so exquisite a complexion seemed to belong rather to a fairytale than to a stuffy and overcrowded shop. The child—for she did not look to be much more—was very elegantly dressed, in a swansdown-trimmed bonnet and pelisse of blue velvet that almost exactly matched her big eyes. From the wide, upstanding brim of her bonnet to the heels of her velvet half-boots all was perfection, except her expression. This was disconsolate, even a little scared. A stylishly gowned woman, who was turning over a pile of muslins on the counter, spoke to her, and, when she did not hear, spoke again, sharply, causing her to give a nervous start.
“For heaven’s sake, Olivia, can you not pay attention?” the elder woman said, in a scolding tone. “How many times am I to tell you that these dawdling and languid airs of yours will not do? I am sure I may wear myself out, buying dresses for you, for anything you care, or any thanks I may get for it! Nothing is so disagreeable in a girl as that stupid sort of indifference, and so you will find!”
The girl flushed, and murmured something Kitty could not hear. She bent over the muslins, but apparently the choice she would have made did not suit her companion’s notions. for Kitty heard the sharp voice say: “Nonsense—quite unsuitable! You have not the least notion! You put me out of all patience with you!”
The girl stepped back again, and, making room for a stout matron to pass, brushed against Kitty. She looked round, begging pardon, in a shy, childish voice, and Kitty said at once: “It is dreadfully crowded, isn’t it? Is it always so?”
“Oh, yes!” sighed the girl. “And Bedford House is worse!”
“I haven’t been there. This is my first visit to London. Do you live here?”
“Yes—no! I mean, we used not to do so. I am just out, you see, so Mama has brought me to town.”
“Why, it is the same—almost—in my own case! I have been shopping all the morning, and my head is in a whirl. It is all so big, and there is so much to see!”
“Do you dislike shopping?” asked the girl sympathetically.
“Gracious, no! I never enjoyed myself so much in my life, I think! Do you dislike it?”
“I liked it at first—having pretty dresses, and hats—but it is so tiring, standing still for hours, while they pin things round me! And being scolded for fidgeting, or tearing a liounce, or letting my best hat be spoilt in the rain.”
The older woman, hearing her voice, had turned her head, and was keenly scrutinizing Kitty, in an appraising way which made Kitty feel that the cost of her clothing was being assessed to a halfpenny. She summoned the girl back to her side, but just at that moment Meg, who had been inspecting some Indian muslin handkerchiefs, looked round, and said: “My dear Kitty, do you think these pretty? Only three shillings and sixpence each! I have a very good mind to buy some.”
The stylish woman stared very hard at her for an instant, and then, suddenly smiling with the utmost affability, spoke to the fair beauty in quite another voice, saying: “I did not perceive that you were engaged, my love! I only wished you to say whether you like this sprig-muslin.” She then bestowed the smile upon Kitty, and added archly: “Has my daughter been telling you that she thinks shopping a dead bore? Such a naughty puss as she is, aren’t you, pet?”
She glanced at Meg, as she spoke. Meg was looking enquiringly from Olivia to Kitty, and was considerably takenaback to find herself suddenly addressed.
“Good gracious! Lady Buckhaven, is it not? How do you do? I dare not hope that your ladyship recollects!—Mrs. Broughty—I had the honour of meeting you at—lord, I shall forget my own name next, I daresay! I fancy you are acquainted with my cousin, Lady Batterstown. Dear Albinia! the sweetest creature! Your ladyship must allow me to present my daughter!”
This was uttered with such a gush of friendliness that Meg, not quite so well-experienced in the ways of the world as she thought herself, was rather overwhelmed. She was certainly acquainted with Lady Batterstown, but she felt sure that she had never before encountered Mrs. Broughty. But although she felt thaf Lady Legerwood, easy-going though she was, would unhesitatingly have depressed Mrs. Broughty’s pretensions, she found herself to be quite unable to do so. It seemed, moreover, that Kitty was acquainted with Miss Broughty: she had certainly been chatting to her, and it appeared that she regarded her with approval. Mrs. Broughty, voluble, and wonderfully assured, was talking of Kitty as though she knew her well, dexterously coupling her with Olivia, rallying both girls on their lack of interest in humdrum shopping, and saying that they must not be allowed to chatter to one another now, but might perhaps meet one day soon. She contrived to tell Meg that she was staying in Hans Crescent—quite out of the world, dear Lady Buckhaven would say!—and even to extort from Meg, stunned by this ruthless eloquence, the expression of a hope that they might become better acquainted. By this time her parcel had been made up, and she was obliged to move away from the counter. While she was taking leave of Meg, at much greater length than the circumstances warranted, Olivia, who had been standing all the time with downcast eyes, and heightened colour, glanced fleetingly into Kitty’s face, and said in a low, unhappy voice: “Pray, forgive—! I mean—I daresay we shan’t meet again! I should not wish—”
Kitty interrupted impulsively: “Indeed, I hope we may!”
Miss Broughty clasped her hand gratefully. “Thank you! You are very good! I wish very much—You see, I have not any friends in London! Not female friends! Oh, Mama is waiting for me! I must go! Goodbye!—so happy to—!”
The sentence was left in mid-air; a tiny curtsy was dropped to Meg; and Olivia followed her mother towards the door.
“Well!” said Meg. “Kitty, who in the world are they? How do you come to know them?”
“But I don’t!” Kitty replied. “I fell into conversation with Miss Broughty, but it was the merest nothing!”
“Good God, I thought they must be friends of yours! Odious, pushing woman! I wish I had given her a set-down! Depend upon it, if I see her again she will claim rne as a friend of long-standing! I can’t conceive how Lady Batterstown comes to have such a vulgar cousin, and I am positive she never introduced her to me.”
“Oh, dear, I am very sorry if I have got you into a scrape!” Kitty said penitently. “But I felt so much pity for Miss Broughty—I had been watching her, you know, thinking how beautiful she was, and that horrid woman spoke to her in such, a way, and she looked frightened, and unhappy! And then I could see she was so much mortified by her mother’s manners that I could not but assure her that I should be happy to meet her again. Meg, did you ever behold a lovelier girl? She was like a fairy princess!”
“I suppose she was very pretty,” acknowledged Meg. “If her hair is naturally that colour, which Mrs. Broughty’s is not!”
Kitty could not allow the colour of Miss Broughty’s hair to be called in question, and was about to defend it when the assistant behind the counter providentially intervened, desiring to be told Meg’s pleasure. The Broughtys were forgotten in the more absorbing business of deciding between a figured and a checked muslin.
Both ladies were considerably fatigued by the time they reached Berkeley Square, but there were so many parcels and bandboxes piled on the seat before them that it was to be supposed that their labours had been successful. The footman carried them all into the house; and if Skelton, the austere butler, was surprised at his mistress’s returning to her home with bandboxes bearing the name of a far from modish shop on their lids he was much too well-trained to betray it.
The Buckhaven mansion was a large one, and furnished with a mixture of old and new taste, Meg having been unable, so far, to persuade her lord to replace all the antiquated chairs and tables which her predecessors had acquired. She conducted Kitty at once to a comfortable bedchamber, where a fire burned brightly in a modern grate, and a sofa, drawn up before it, invited repose. Someone had unpacked Kitty’s trunk, and had laid out her dressing-gown. Meg recom—
mended her to lie down upon the sofa for an hour, begged her to ring the bell if she desired anything to be brought to her, and tripped away to rest on her bed, in accordance, she told Kitty, with her doctor’s advice.
Remembering that she was in a delicate situation, Kitty hoped very much that the day’s shopping had not dangerously exhausted her. She herself was quite tired out, and had no sooner leaned her head back against the sofa-cushions than she fell asleep. She awoke to a room lit only by the glow from the fire, and started up, wondering for how long she had been asleep. A knock on the door was followed by the cautious entrance of her hostess, who exclaimed in the voice of one by no means exhausted: “Oh, you have not rung for candles! Were you asleep? Did I wake you? I beg your pardon, but pray come to my dressing-room, Kitty! Mallow is there, and we have been looking out some things which I never wear, and perhaps you might like! You won’t be offended? We shall be sisters, you know, and how stupid to stand upon ceremony! Do come!”
Kitty could only thank her, and be glad that there was not light enough in the room for Meg to perceive her blushes. Almost she wished that the Standens had repulsed her, rather than have sunk her so deep in conscious guilt by their kindness. But the complications attaching to a belated confession were too numerous to be faced; lingering only long enough to allow her cheeks to cool, she followed Meg down one pair of stairs to her dressing-room. And here she found so many elegant things laid out for her inspection that she could scarcely be blamed for forgetting that she was an impostor. Meg’s dresser, a middle-aged woman who had for many years been employed in the Standen family, knew all about Mr. Penicuik, and so saw nothing remarkable, or worthy of her contempt, in Miss Charing’s straitened circumstances. A little to Meg’s surprise, she had thrown herself heart and soul into the task of deciding which of her mistress’s gowns, and hats, and shawls could best be spared from her overflowing wardrobe. The modish Lady Buckhaven was not to know that her dresser, deep in Lady Legerwood’s confidence, was at her wits’ end to know how to restrain her dashing but inexperienced employer from appearing in public in garments which, however fashionable they might be, were quite unsuited to her fair prettiness. One glance at Miss Charing was enough to assure her that the greens and the ambers and the rich reds which Lady Buck— haven had so recklessly bought would admirably become this dark damsel. In her anxiety to be rid of garments the wearing of which by Meg would surely draw down upon her dresser’s head reproaches from Lady Legerwood, she even offered to make such slight alterations as might be necessary to adapt them to Miss Charing’s fuller figure. When Miss Charing shrank from accepting an opulent evening-cloak of cherry— red velvet, ruched and braided, and lined with satin, she contrived to draw her a little aside, and to whisper in her ear: “Take it, miss! My lady—Lady Legerwood, I mean!—will be so very much obliged to you! Miss Margaret—Lady Buckhaven, I should say!—should never wear cherry!”
Kitty, who had a very fair eye for colour, was obliged to acknowledge the justice of this. In the end, she returned to her own chamber, to dress for dinner, the dazed possessor of a costly evening cloak, a bronze-green half-dress, an amber robe of satin and lace, a round-dress of lilac cambric, a bunch of curled ostrich plumes, dyed gold, and several scarves, reticules, and tippets.
On the following day, Meg’s own hairdresser came to Berkeley Square, and, much hindered by the conflicting instructions of Lady Buckhaven and Miss Mallow, achieved a style for the hapless Miss Charing which succeeded in satisfying all parties. Miss Charing, staring wide-eyed into the mirror, saw reflected therein a stranger: a beautiful brunette, whose dusky curls, twisted into a knot on the top of her head, were allowed, at the sides, to fall on either side of her face in carefully careless ringlets. Meg being engaged with a party of friends, the rest of the day was spent by Miss Charing in judicious shopping, under the aegis of Miss Mallow. A large hole was dug into the fifty-pound bill handed to her by Freddy, but she felt that the money had been well-spent, and was able to present herself that evening in Meg’s drawing-room complete to a shade in the bronze— green robe bestowed upon her by her hostess, slippers of Denmark satin on her feet, a reticule of embroidered silk dangling from one wrist, Lady Legerwood’s handsome shawl draped negligently over her elbows, and the whole set off by the topaz set which, with a short necklet of pearls, were the only trinkets she had inherited from her French mother. Mr. Penicuik, at the last moment, had disclosed the existence of these gauds, and had bestowed them upon her, bidding her to take care not to lose them. She had shown them to Meg that very morning, with the result that when her betrothed arrived in Berkeley Square to dine with the two ladies he brought with him a neat package from Jeffrey’s, jeweller to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, which, when opened, revealed a very pretty pair of pearl earrings.
(“If you were wondering what to give Kitty as an engagement present, Freddy, I can tell you what she chiefly needs!” had said Meg, encountering her brother in Bond Street, and unwittingly putting him in mind of his obligations.)
“Oh, Freddy!” gasped Miss Charing, gazing in mingled dismay and delight at these treasures. “Oh, no, no, no!”
“Kitty, how absurd you are!” Meg exclaimed, much entertained. “As though Freddy would not give you a present to commemorate your betrothal! It is such a pity that the circumstance of your not yet announcing it should make it ineligible for him to give you a ring! What do you mean to choose for her, Freddy? Diamonds, I suppose.”
“You must not! Indeed you must not!” Kitty said earnestly, her countenance becomingly flushed.
“No, really, Kit!” protested Mr. Standen, equally embarrassed. “The veriest trumpery! Assure you!”
He then turned to his sister, revolted by her suggestion that he was so lacking in taste as to choose an insipid diamond for a lady who should clearly be decked in rubies or emeralds. By the time the rival merits of these two stones had been argued out, Skelton had announced that dinner awaited her ladyship, and Kitty seized the opportunity afforded by Meg’s leading the way to the dining-room to whisper agitatedly into Freddy’s ear: “When it is at an end I shall give them back to you!”
“Good God, no!” Freddy said, shocked. “They ain’t heirlooms, Kit! Sort of things anyone might give you!”
She was unable to accept this, but there was no time to say more: they had reached the dining-room, and Meg, as she took her seat at the table, was explaining that she had invited no guests because she believed that the engaged couple would prefer to be alone.
“Eh?” said Freddy. “Oh! Just so! Got something to say, now I come to think of it. Important-.”
He was naturally pressed to continue, but he only shook his head, looking so portentous that Kitty was alarmed, imagining various disasters, from a recall to Arnside to the loss of that precious roll of bills. However, when they went back to the drawing-room, Freddy explained himself, saying apologetically: “No sense in puffing off the business to the servants. Looked in at Almack’s last night. Put me in mind of it. Can you dance, Kit?”
“Only country-dances,” Kitty replied anxiously. “Fish taught me the steps, but she does not know the waltz or the quadrille, of course.”
Freddy nodded at his sister. “Caper-merchant,” he said. “Thought as much!”
“Do you mean that she must hire a dancing-master?” demanded Meg. “Well, I think it is a great piece of nonsense, besides being a waste of time, for you know how much engaged M. Dupont always is at this season! Depend upon it, Kitty would be obliged to wait for days and days before he could find the time to come to her. Why don’t you teach her yourself? For this I will say, Freddy!—however stupid you may be, you are by far the best dancer in London! And that, let me tell you, is what Lady Jersey says!”
“Does she, though?” said Freddy, moved by this tribute. “By Jove!” Doubt shook him. “Yes, but I couldn’t teach Kit! Dash it all!”
“Oh, Freddy, please do!” begged Kitty, by no means anxious to spend any of her fast-dwindling substance on the services of a dancing-master.
“He shall do so!” declared Meg. “He shall teach you the waltz this very evening!”
The unfortunate Mr. Standen protested in vain: he was no match for two determined females. Chairs and tables were thrust against the wall; and when, in a last, despairing effort to save himself, he pleaded that although he could do the thing he was dashed if he could explain it, Meg jumped up from the piano-stool, and very obligingly said that she would do it with him, so that Kitty might learn by observation. As Kitty could hardly be expected to watch the steps and to play the piano at the same time, Meg provided the necessary music by humming one of her favourite waltz-airs, a performance which so lacerated the sensitive Mr. Standen’s nerves that he very soon declared that anything was better than to have such a devilish noise in his ear, and offered to give his betrothed a turn. Since Kitty had a natural aptitude, and Meg was able to come to the rescue when his verbal instructions became too incoherent to do more than bewilder his pupil, the lesson was very successful. In a remarkably short space of time, Freddy decided that she was sufficiently advanced to put his tuition into practice. He bade his sister play one of his favourite airs, took Miss Charing in his arm, and made her dance round the room with him. She was at first so much embarrassed that she made a great many false steps, for to stand so close to a man, and to feel his arm about her waist, positively constraining her to move in whatever direction he wished, was an unprecedented and rather alarming experience, and one, moreover, which she knew would have been violently disapproved of by her guardian and her governess. She kept her eyes shyly lowered, and could not help blushing a little. But as there was nothing in the least amorous in Freddy’s light, firm clasp, and such remarks as he addressed to her were of an admonitory nature, she soon recovered her countenance, began to move with much more assurance, and even, presently, dared to raise her eyes.
“You know what?” Freddy said, when at last he released her. “You ain’t a bad dancer at all, Kit. Dashed if I don’t think you’ll shine ‘em all down!”
“Oh!” cried Kitty, a little out of breath, but triumphant. “Do you think so indeed, Freddy?” “Shouldn’t be at all surprised. What I mean is, when you’ve rid yourself of this devilish trick you have of treading on me every now and then.”
“You are a great deal too severe, Freddy!” said Meg, beginning to put the chairs back into their places. “She dances very gracefully! I am sure I should never have guessed she had never waltzed before!”
Freddy shook his head. “Would it you’d been dancing with her,” he said simply.
“Well!” exclaimed Meg. “What an odious thing to say! And you have been engaged to her only for three days!”
“Keep forgetting!” murmured Freddy, with a consciencestricken glance at Miss Charing.
Thinking that she could not have heard aright, Meg was just about to ask him to repeat his remark when the door was opened, and Skelton ushered Mr. Westruther into the room.