“Mr. Severn,” said Miss Hammersly, “Miss Baldwin. Mr. Severn is Mrs. Ricardo Severn’s nephew.”
“Oh! the nephew who renamed the parrot!” gasped the blushing Beth.
“Right!” cried the young fellow, his eyes twinkling. “Really, we, as a family, are insufferably snobbish. So I determined to save Mr. Montague from that sin.”
“Dennis Mudd!” laughed Beth. “Dear me! I think he hated me.”
“He does not love me,” confessed Mr. Severn, “though I did finish his education.”
“And that foreign person——”
“You mean Saronie, the maid?”
“Yes; she seemed fairly to hate me. I wonder why?”
“We have much in common,” declared the young man, “you and I, Miss Baldwin. Saronie does not fancy me. I think it is because Mrs. Ricardo, when she shuffles off this mortal coil, will have much personal property to give away.”
Beth found young Mr. Severn a very amusing person. She danced three times with him, and then refused him as a partner for the rest of the evening. “Why, you’re as bad as Mr. Montague,” she told him. “You want everything and everybody your own way.”