"Isn't this Miss Roberts? I am Mrs. Murray. I used to know your family — your uncle George, before that dreadful business of his. I believe it all came out right; he wasn't to blame ; but it was a shocking experience." Mrs. Murray turns from Lilly, and refers herself to the company in general: "It seems as if I should expire on the spot. I feel as if I had been packed away in my own hat-box for a week, and here, just as we arrive, the landlord informs us that he didn't expect us till tomorrow night, and he hasn't an empty room in the house!"
Maggie: "No room! To-morrow night! What nonsense! Why it's perfectly frantic! How could he have misunderstood? Why, it seems to me that I've done nothing for a week past but tell him you were coming to-night!"
Mrs. Murray, sharply: "I have no doubt of it. But it doesn't alter the state of the case. You may tell us to leave our things till after tea, Leslie. If they can't make up beds on the sofas and the piano, I don't know where we 're going to pass the night." In the moment of distressful sensation which follows Miss Wallace whispers something eagerly to her friend, Miss Roberts.
Maggie, with a laughing glance at Leslie and her mother, and then going on with her whispering: "Excuse the little confidence!"
Mrs. Bellingham: "Conspiracy, I'm afraid. What are you plotting, Maggie?"
Maggie, finishing her confidence: "Oh, we needn't make a mystery of such a little thing. We 're going to offer you one of our rooms."
Mrs. Bellingham: "My dear, you are going to do nothing of the kind. We will never allow it."
Maggie: "Now, Mrs. Bellingham, you break my heart! It's nothing, it's less than nothing. I believe we can make room for all three of you."
Mrs. Murray, promptly: "Let me go with you, young ladies. I'm an old housekeeper, and I can help you plan."
Maggie: "Oh do, Mrs. Murray. You can tell which room you'd better take, Lilly's or mine. Lilly's is" —
Mrs. Murray: "Oh! I had forgotten that we were detaining you!" Mrs. Murray is about to leave the room with the two young girls, when her eye falls upon Blake, who is still present, with his burden of hand-bags and shawls. "Leave the things on the table, please. We are obliged to you." Mrs. Murray speaks with a certain finality of manner and tone which there is no mistaking; Blake stares at her a moment, and then, without replying, lays down the things and turns to quit the room; at the same instant Leslie rises with a grand air from her mother's side, on the sofa, and sweeps towards him.
Leslie, very graciously: "Don't let our private afflictions drive you from a public room, Mr.—"
Blake: "Blake."
Leslie: "Mr. Blake. This is my mother, Mr. Blake, who wishes to thank you for all your kindness to us."
Mrs. Bellingham: "Yes, indeed, Mr. Blake, we are truly grateful to you."
Leslie, with increasing significance: "And my aunt, Mrs. Murray; and my friend, Miss Wallace and Miss Roberts." Blake bows to each of the ladies as they are named, but persists in his movement to quit the room; Leslie impressively offers him her hand. "Must you go? Thank you, ever, ever so much!" She follows him to the door in his withdrawal, and then turns and confronts her aunt with an embattled front of defiance.
Maggie, with an effort breaking the embarrassing silence: "Come, Lilly. Let us go and take a look at our resources. We 'll be back in a moment Mrs. Bellingham."
IV. Mrs. Bellingham and Leslie; afterwards Mrs, Murray and Maggie.
Leslie, coming abruptly forward as her aunt goes out with the two young girls, and drooping meekly in front of her mother, who remains seated on the sofa: "Well, mamma!"
Mrs. Bellingham, tranquilly contemplating her for a moment: "Well, Leslie!" She pauses, and again silently regards her daughter. "Perhaps you may be said to have overdone it."
Leslie, passionately: "I can't help it. mother! I couldn't see him sent away in that insolent manner, I don't care who or what he is. Aunt Kate's tone was outrageous, atrocious, hideous! And after accepting, yes, demanding every service he could possibly render, the whole afternoon! It made me blush for her, and I wasn't going to stand it."
Mrs. Bellingham: "If you mean by all that that your poor aunt is a very ungracious and exacting woman, I shall not dispute you. But she's your father's sister; and she's very much older than you. You seem to have forgotten, too, that your mother was present to do any justice that was needed. It 'a very unfortunate that he should have been able to do us so many favors, but that can't be helped now. It's one of the risks of coming to these out-of-the-way places, that you 're so apt to be thrown in with nondescript people that you don't know how to get rid of afterwards. And now that he's been so cordially introduced to us all! Well, I hope you won't have to be crueler in the end, my dear, than your aunt meant to be in the beginning. So far, of course, he has behaved with perfect delicacy; but you must see yourself, Leslie, that even as a mere acquaintance he's quite out of the question; that however kind and thoughtful he's been, and no one could have been more so, he isn't a gentleman."
Leslie, impatiently: "Well, then, mother, I am! And so are you. And I think we are bound to behave like gentlemen at any cost. I didn't mean to ignore you. I didn't consider. I acted as I thought Charley would have done."
Mrs. Bellingham: "Oh, my dear, my dear Don't you see there's a very important difference? Your brother is a man, and he can act without reference to consequences. But you are a young lady, and you can't be as gentlemanly as you like without being liable to misinterpretation. I shall expect you to behave very discreetly indeed from this time forth. We must consider now how our new friend can be kindly, yet firmly and promptly, dropped."
Leslie: "Oh, it's another of those embarrassments that aunt Kate's always getting me into I I was discreet about it till she acted so horridly. You can ask Maggie if I didn't talk in the wisest way about it; like a perfect — owl. I saw it just as you do, mamma, and I was going to drop him, and so I will, yet; but I couldn't see him so ungratefully trampled on. It's all her doing! Who wanted to come here to this out-of-the-way place? Why, aunt Kate, — when I was eager to go to Conway! I declare it's too bad!"
Mrs. Bellingham: "That will do, Leslie."
Leslie: "And now she's gone off with those poor girls to crowd them out of house and home, I suppose. It's a shame! Why did you let her, mamma?"
Mrs. Bellingham: "For the same reason that I let you talk on, my dear, when I've bidden you stop."
Leslie: "Oh, you dear, kind old mamma, you! You 're a gentleman, and you always were! I only wish I could be half like you!" She throws her arms round her mother's neck and kisses her. "I know you 're right about this matter, but you mustn't expect me to acknowledge that aunt Kate is. If you both said exactly the same thing, you would be right and she would be wrong, you'd say it so differently!"
Mrs. Murray, who returns alone with signs of discontent and perplexity, and flings herself into a chair: "Their rooms are mere coops, and I don't see how even two of us are to squeeze into one of them. It's little better than impertinence to offer it
