"You incorrigible girl," says Mrs. Merivale with something between a laugh and a sigh; "but now run back, dear, and get my fan off the dressing-table in my room. O, and look in and tell Honor that she can come down for an hour or so to-night if she likes. Tell her to wear her white nun's veiling with the moiré sash and ribbons."
Charmed with this message Doris is soon back in her own room, where she finds Honor still helping Lane to put things a little straight, in Lucy's prolonged absence, which is irritating the older maid not a little.
"Honor, my girl, you are to come down into the drawing-room to-night; mother says so. O, and you are to wear your nun's veiling, &c. Now don't say you don't want to!"
"I don't, truly," says Honor, looking from Doris to Lane and back again. "I am tired and sleepy now, and it is a bother to have to change one's dress just for an hour, when I'd far rather be in bed."
"Well, I call it downright spiteful of you, Honor. Just the evening of all others that I want you. I was looking forward to telling you all about the dinner, and we could have had a jolly time in a secluded corner with Hugh. And oh, I forgot, Regy is coming in after dinner; so we four might have some rare fun. Do come, there's a dear!" And Doris looks at Honor so beseechingly that she sacrifices her own feelings in the matter and says, "Very well, dear, I'll come. Now run away, there's mother calling you."
CHAPTER II.
DORIS'S FIRST DINNER-PARTY.
That quarter of an hour before dinner, which to people who are used to it is generally rather a bore than otherwise, is quite an amusement to Doris, whose only experience of dinner-parties hitherto has been a bird's-eye view, obtained by hanging over the balustrade, of the guests filing into the dining-room. To-night the girl feels all the importance of being for the first time an actual participant in the entertainment; and flushed with the consciousness of her own dignity in having to assist her mother in receiving their friends, and the proud knowledge that she is wearing a properly-made dress, she feels there is at last some advantage in being the eldest girl of the family. A long peal at the bell, and Doris rushes hastily across to her mother.
"Do you really wish me to talk to every one, mother, and divide my attentions between them all, as I have seen you doing?"
"Yes, dear, of course. You will soon take it up and get accustomed to the ways of society. I want you to see a little in your own home before coming out next season, so that you may gain a little experience; otherwise I should not let you dine with us at your age. I don't know, I am sure, what your aunt will say to what I suppose she will call my injudicious haste in bringing you forward. She considers eighteen quite the correct age for introducing girls, but six months the other side—"