Lady Rowley became very red in the face, and was unhappy. "I declare," she said, "that they told me it was your elder sister."
"But I have no elder sister," said Caroline, laughing.
"Of course she is oldest," said Nora,—"and looks to be so, ever so much. Don't you, Miss Spalding?"
"I have always supposed so."
"I don't understand it at all," said Lady Rowley, who had no image before her mind's eye but that of Wallachia Petrie, and who was beginning to feel that she had disgraced her own judgment by the criticisms she had expressed everywhere as to Mr. Glascock's bride. "I don't understand it at all. Do you mean that both your sisters are younger than you, Miss Spalding?"
"I have only got one, Lady Rowley."
"Mamma, you are thinking of Miss Petrie," said Nora, clapping both her hands together.
"I mean the lady that wears the black bugles."
"Of course you do;—Miss Petrie. Mamma has all along thought that Mr. Glascock was going to carry away with him the republican Browning!"
"Oh, mamma, how can you have made such a blunder!" said Sophie Rowley. "Mamma does make such delicious blunders."