In her new sphere of action, and the two ties in the shape of a boy and a girl by her husband, the baronet, she had little time to think of her earlier career, which appeared to have been blotted out of her recollection.
She loved to be a reigning beauty in the fashionable world, and although time had in some measure robbed her of the freshness of youth, she was still a beautiful and loveable woman, whose society was courted.
She had at times misgivings in respect to her son Reginald, who did not give her much of his society.
There were reasons for this. In the first place, the young earl did not care a great deal about his father-in-law, who, albeit, a good, honest, bluff, English gentleman, was a little brusque in his manner towards his son-in-law.
This was not intentional, but resulted from a habit of plain speaking which he had acquired down in his ancestral home in the west of England.
To Aveline he was uniformly kind and considerate. Indeed, with him her word was law. He knew she had been indulged by her grandfather.
“Spoilt,” he would sometimes say, “if it were possible to spoil such a gentle, tender-hearted creature. But there,” the baronet would say, “he did his best to spoil her, but she was too much for him, and he couldn’t succeed. Hang me, if I think any man alive could spoil my Aveline. No man breathing, sir,” and when he gave utterance to this speech the baronet would glare around at the persons he was addressing, and looked as if they had done him some sort of an injury; and so it was pretty generally acknowledged that Lady Batershall was a star in the fashionable firmament.
She did not lose sight of her old friend and instructress, Lady Marvlynn, whom she regarded in the light of her nearest and dearest associate.
The latter had always on hand one or two protégees whom she was preparing to “bring out,” as she termed it. It was not possible for her ladyship to remain long idle, some sort of employment was a necessity to her.
She had at this time a young lady under her charge, a Miss Arabella Lovejoyce.