Dilemmas of Pride. Mrs. Loudon
had the impudence to call, and the new footman not being in the family secrets, admitted them.
On their entrance Aunt Dorothea looked her astonishment with great dignity.
"What a sweet situation," exclaimed Miss Salter.
"What a charming house," said Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed.
"How fortunate we were in finding you at home," said Miss Salter.
"Oh, yes, very fortunate indeed!" added Miss Grace. Mrs. Dorothea bowed again.
"How sorry we were you could not come to us last night," said Miss Salter, "we had such a select party, just what you would have liked."
"Yes, just what you would have liked," echoed Miss Grace.
"I hope we shall be more fortunate the next time," said Miss Salter. "We shall have a great many of those agreeable select parties just now. Our particular friend, Lady Flamborough, you see, and our particular friend, Lady Whaleworthy, and our particular friend, Lady Shawbridge, and all that pleasant set being here just now, naturally induces one to see a great deal of company. Then there are such delightful young men here at present, and that you know always makes parties pleasant, there's our friend, Sir William Orm, such an elegant fashionable young man."
"And Sir James Lindsey," observed Miss Grace, "an old baronet, with fifteen thousand a-year."
"Yes," said Miss Salter, "such an agreeable good tempered little man, so affable and unassuming. And there is General Powel too, in short we quite abound in nice young men. And I hope," added Miss Salter, with an air of great friendship, "that we shall soon and often have the pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Arden."
"You are very obliging," replied Mrs. Dorothea, bowing gravely, "but my arrangements will for some considerable time be controlled entirely by those of my sister, Lady Arden, and her family, with whom I shall consider myself engaged, either at home or abroad, every day during their stay."
"So you expect Lady Arden," said Miss Salter, with well affected surprise. "Dear me, I'm sure we should be most happy to pay attention to any friend of yours."
"You are very obliging," observed Mrs. Dorothea, with if possible increasing stiffness, "but Lady Arden does not mean to extend her acquaintance."
The discomforted Misses Salter finding lingering and last words useless, at length took their departure.
The Ardens dined on the road, but arrived in time to take tea with Aunt Dorothea. The weather was beautiful; the rural appearance of the little villa, situated among the plantations and pleasure grounds of the public walks, its own miniature lawn and veranda, adorned with flowers and flowering shrubs, and garlanded with roses as if for a festival, the fine trees of the Old-Well-Walk in view, and bands of music, as if hid in every grove, sending forth on each breeze some strain of melody, all seemed delightful and refreshing to people just escaped from the heat and fatigue of London. While the large and joyous looking family party, some seated within the open glass door, some standing in the veranda, some straying on the fresh mown turf of the little lawn, formed a picture of social felicity quite delightful to the usually solitary Aunt Dorothea; to whom the idea of the party being not only her near relatives, but also her guests, was altogether so pleasing that she had not been as happy for many years. To her kind heart must be ascribed the chief of the pleasure she experienced; if, however, there was a slight admixture of gratified vanity we cannot be surprised, when we consider that a pretty comfortable house of her own, in which to receive her friends, was to her so great a novelty.
CHAPTER X.
So fond is youth of novelty, that Alfred and his sisters, though fresh from all the gaieties a London season has to offer, were quite impatient, the very morning after their arrival, to visit the public walks, of which they had had peeps the evening before from Aunt Dorothea's veranda. They had been told that about seven was the hour. Accordingly, as it was a fine sunny morning, the girls were all up soon after six. They had been told too, that notwithstanding the hour, it was usual to be extremely fine; but for this their habits of good taste were too inveterate; they equipped themselves therefore in quite close bonnets, and having roused and enlisted the goodnatured Alfred, set off for Mrs. Dorothea's, Lady Arden having by an arrangement of the evening before, committed the young people to the charge of their aunt, knowing that she should be too much fatigued herself after her journey to rise so early.
Aunt Dorothea was quite ready. She was too happy in feeling herself necessary to her nieces, too happy in having the charge of them, too justly proud of them, proud of their beauty, and all their many attractions and recommendations, to feel anything like laziness, this first morning that she was to show, not only the walks to them, but them to the walks.
Thither then they proceeded immediately, guided through each shady maze, as in the play called Magic Music, in which the sounds become louder to denote nearness to the object of pursuit. So did the swelling notes of the band grow on the ear as they approached the immediate spot, which it is fashion's whim to throng as closely as any crowded assembly-room, while all around is comparative solitude.
Here all-kind Aunt Dorothea's proud anticipations were fully answered by the sensation her nieces produced; every eye was turned towards them, and in ten minutes after their first appearance all the company who sat on the benches on either side the walk had asked each other who they were; the mammas who had daughters, and the young ladies who were not young, decided that they were not the style of beauty they admired, while the very young girls and all the men, had pronounced them the loveliest creatures they had ever beheld. As for the mothers who had sons, they prudently suspended their judgments till they should hear what fortunes the Miss Ardens were likely to have.
Our party were joined instantly by Henry Lindsey. He had ascertained their movements from themselves, and quitted town when they did to be in Cheltenham before them. He was at Louisa's side in a moment, and was received with a blush and a smile which, though produced in part at least by gratified vanity, seemed to his generous nature all he could desire of encouragement. He was of course introduced to Aunt Dorothea, who, until she found out that he was a younger brother, was quite delighted with him.
The Arden party now took advantage of vacant seats which presented themselves, and for a time became in their turn spectators of the moving crowd.
Soon after which, announced by noise, and with many coloured streamers flying, the fleet of the Salters, and their select friends hove in sight.
There was in the first place Mr. Salter, with a white hat on, which duly set off by contrast, that true secret for producing effect, a countenance, the hue of which we flatter ourselves we need not again describe. Lady Flamborough embellished his arm; her head thrown back, and adorned by a pink crape hat and feathers, her eyes raised, and practising their most becoming roll, her complexion heightened by the heat of the weather and the long walk up through the Sherbourn. Not that her dress was oppressive, on the contrary, it was light enough in all conscience, consisting of the softest India muslin, trimmed with superfine Mechlin lace, and ornamented at the neck, and at the wrists round the top, and round the bottom, down the sleeves, and down the front, with ties, bows, and ends innumerable, of pink ribbon, while a broad long sash of the same encircled the waist, tied behind in dancing-school fashion. The dress was made nearly as low round the bust as a dinner costume, while what shelter there was to compensate for this was derived from the long pendant white gauze-ribbon strings, and deep blond-lace edge of the hat, with merely a slight pink gauze-scarf, scarcely wider or longer than the said strings.
The next in the line (as it approached crossing the walk abreast), was Lady Whaleworthy, defying hot weather and sunshine in a crimson velvet pelisse. It was a thing which, as she told her own maid when putting it on, had cost too much money to be ever either out of season or out of fashion: it was only your dabs of things which every body could have that were sure to go out again before you could turn yourself round in them, so that there was no saving in the end. "I always tells Sir