old diplomat told me the other day," said Lord Fontenoy—but with a cold unwillingness, as though he disliked the subject—"that she was the most beautiful woman, he thought, that had been seen in London since Lady Blessington's time."
"Lady Blessington! dear, dear!—Lady Blessington!" said Lady Tressady with malicious emphasis—an unfortunate comparison, don't you think? Not many people would like to be regarded as Lady Blessington's successor."
"In any other respect than beauty," said Edward Watton, haughtily, with the same tension as before, "the comparison, of course, would be ridiculous."
Harding shrugged his shoulders, and, tilting his chair back, said in the ear of a shy young man who sat next him:
"In my opinion, the Count d'Orsay is only a question of time! However, one mustn't say that to Edward."
Harding read memoirs, and considered himself a man of general cultivation. The young man addressed, who read no printed matter outside the sporting papers that he could help, and had no idea as to who Lady Blessington and Count d'Orsay might be, smiled vaguely, and said nothing.
"My dear," said the squire, plaintively, "isn't this room extremely hot?"
There was a ripple of meaning laughter from all the young people, to many of whom this particular quarrel was already tiresomely familiar. Mr. Watton, who never understood anything, looked round with an inquiring air. Mrs. Watton condescended to take the hint and retire.
In the drawing-room afterwards Mrs. Watton first allotted a duty-conversation of some ten minutes in length, and dealing strictly with the affairs of the parish, to Mrs. Hawkins, who, as clergyman's wife, had a definite official place in the Malford House circle, quite irrespective of any individuality she might happen to possess. Mrs. Hawkins was plain, self-conscious, and in no way interesting to Mrs. Watton, who never took the smallest trouble to approach her in any other capacity than that upon which she had entered by marrying the incumbent of the squire's home living. But the civilities and respects that were recognised as belonging to her station she received.
This however, alas! was not enough for Mrs. Hawkins, who was full of ambitions, which had a bad manner, a plague of shyness, and a narrow income, were perpetually thwarting. As soon as the ten minutes were over, and Mrs. Watton, who was nothing if not political, and saw no occasion to make a stranger of the vicar's wife, had plunged into the evening papers brought her by the footman, Mrs. Hawkins threw herself on Letty Sewell. She was effusively grateful—too grateful—for the patterns lent her by Miss Sewell's maid.
"Did she lend you some patterns?" said Letty, raising her brows. "Dear me; I didn't know."
And her eyes ran cooly over Mrs. Hawkins's attire, which did, indeed, present a village imitation of the delicate gown in which Miss Sewell had robed herself for the evening.
Mrs. Hawkins coloured.
"I specially told my nurse," she said hastily, "that of course your leave must be asked. But my nurse and your maid seem to have made friends. Of course my nurse has plenty of time for dressmaking with only one child of four to look after, and—and—one really gets no new ideas in a poky place like this. But I would not have taken a liberty for the world."
Her pride and mauvaise honte together made both voice and manner particularly unattractive. Letty was seized with the same temper that little boys show towards flies.
"Of course I am delighted!" she said indifferently. "It's so nice and good to have one's things made at home. Your nurse must be a treasure."
All the time her gaze was diligently inspecting every ill-cut seam and tortured trimming of the homemade triumph before her. The ear of the vicar's wife, always morbidly sensitive in that particular drawing-room, caught a tone of insult in every light word. A passionate resentment flamed up in her, and she determined to hold her own.
"Are you going in for more visits when you leave here?" she inquired.
"Yes, two or three," said Letty, turning her delicate head unwittingly. She had been throwing blandishments to Mrs. Watton's dog, a grey Aberdeen terrier, who stood on the rug quietly regarding her.
"You spend most of the year in visits, don't you?"
"Well, a good deal of it," said Letty.
"Don't you find it dreadfully time-wasting? Does it leave you leisure for any serious occupations at all? I am afraid it would make me terribly idle!"
Mrs. Hawkins laughed, attempting a tone of banter.
Letty put up a small hand to hide a sudden yawn, which, however, was visible enough.
"Would it?" she said, with an impertinence which hardly tried to conceal itself. "Evelyn, do look at that dog. Doesn't he remind you of Mr. Bayley?"
She beckoned to the handsome child of sixteen who had sat on George Tressady's left hand at dinner, and, taking up a pinch of rose-leaves that had dropped from a vase beside her, she flung them at the dog, calling him to her. Instead of going to her, however, the dog slowly curled himself up on the rug, and, laying his nose along his front paws, stared at her steadily with the expression of one mounting guard.
"He never will make friends with you, Letty. Isn't it odd?" said Evelyn, laughing, and stooping to stroke the creature.
"Never mind; other dogs will. Did you see that adorable black Spitz of Lady Arthur's? She has promised to give me one."
The two cousins fell into a chatter about their county neighbours, mostly rich and aristocratic people, of whom Mrs. Hawkins knew little or nothing. Evelyn Watton, whose instincts were quick and generous, tried again and again to draw the vicar's wife into the conversation. Letty was determined to exclude her. She lay back against the sofa, chatting her liveliest, the whiteness of her neck and cheek shining against the red of the damask behind, one foot lightly crossed over the other, showing her costly little slippers with their paste buckles. She sparkled with jewels as much as a girl may—more, indeed, in Mrs. Hawkins's opinion, than a girl should. From head to foot she breathed affluence, seduction, success—only the seduction was not for Mrs. Hawkins and her like.
The vicar's wife sat flushed and erect on her chair, disdaining after a time to make any further effort, but inwardly intolerably sore. She could not despise Letty Sewell, unfortunately, since Letty's advantages were just those that she herself most desired. But there was something else in her mind than small jealousy. When Letty had been a brilliant child in short frocks, the vicar's wife, who was scarcely six years older, had opened her heart, had tried to make herself loved by Mrs. Watton's niece. There had been a moment when they had been "Madge" and "Letty" to each other, even since Letty had "come out." Now, whenever Mrs. Hawkins attempted the Christian name, it stuck in her throat; it seemed, even to herself, a familiarity that had nothing to go upon; while with every succeeding visit to Malford, Letty had dropped her former friend more decidedly, and "Madge" was heard no more.
The gentlemen, deep in election incident and gossip, were, in the view chiefly of the successful candidate, unreasonably long in leaving the dining-room. When they appeared at last, George Tressady once more made an attempt to talk to someone else than Letty Sewell, and once more failed.
"I want you to tell me something about Miss Sewell," said Lord Fontenoy presently in Mrs. Watton's ear. He had been sitting silent beside her on the sofa for some little time, apparently toying with the evening papers, which Mrs. Watton had relinquished to him.
Mrs. Watton looked up, followed the direction of his eyes towards
