She would probably, under existing circumstances, have stayed at home with her niece, but that she knew she should meet Sir Lionel at Miss Todd's party. She was very anxious to learn whether Sir Lionel had heard of this sad interruption to their harmony; anxious to hear what Sir Lionel would say about it; anxious to concert measures with Sir Lionel for repairing the breach—that is, if Sir Lionel should appear to be cognizant that the breach existed. If she should find that he was not cognizant, she would not tell him; at least she thought she would not. Circumstances must of course govern her conduct to a certain degree when the moment of meeting should arrive. And so Miss Baker went to the party, certainly with a saddened heart, but comforted in some degree by the assurance that she would meet Sir Lionel. "Dear Sir Lionel, what a thing it is to have a friend," she said to herself as she stepped into the fly. Yes, indeed, the best thing in the world—the very best. But, dear Miss Baker, it is of all things the most difficult to acquire—and especially difficult for both ladies and gentlemen after forty years of age.
In the meantime, Sir Lionel had been calling on Miss Todd—had heard a good deal about Miss Todd; and was strong at heart, as a man is strong who has two good strings to his bow.
CHAPTER VII.
MISS TODD'S CARD-PARTY.
Yes. The great Miss Todd had arrived at Littlebath, and had already been talked about not a little. Being a maiden lady, with no family but her one own maid, she lived in lodgings of course. People at Littlebath, indeed, are much given to lodgings. They are mostly a come-and-go class of beings, to whom the possession of furniture and the responsibilities of householding would be burdensome. But then Miss Todd's lodgings were in the Paragon, and all the world knows how much it costs to secure eligible rooms in the Paragon: two spacious sitting-rooms, for instance, a bedroom, and a closet for one's own maid. And Miss Todd had done this in the very best corner of the Paragon; in that brazen-faced house which looks out of the Paragon right down Montpellier Avenue as regards the front windows, and from the back fully commands the entrance to the railway station. This was Mrs. O'Neil's house; and, as Mrs. O'Neil herself loudly boasted when Miss Todd came to inspect the premises, she rarely took single ladies, or any ladies that had not handles to their names. Her very last lodger had been Lady McGuffern, the widow of the medical director of the great Indian Eyesore district, as Mrs. O'Neil called it. And Lady McGuffern had paid her, oh! ever so much per week; and had always said on every Saturday—"Mrs. O'Neil, your terms for such rooms as these are much too low." It is in such language that the widows of Scotch doctors generally speak of their lodgings when they are paying their weekly bills.
And these rooms Miss Todd had secured. She had, moreover, instantly sent for Mr. Wutsanbeans, who keeps those remarkably neat livery stables at the back of the Paragon, and in ten minutes had concluded her bargain for a private brougham and private coachman in demi-livery at so much per week. "And very wide awake she is, is Miss Todd," said the admiring Mr. Wutsanbeans, as he stood among his bandy-legged satellites. And then her name was down at the assembly-rooms, and in the pump-room, and the book-room, and in the best of sittings in Mr. O'Callaghan's fashionable church, in almost less than no time. There were scores of ladies desirous of being promoted from the side walls to the middle avenues in Mr. O'Callaghan's church; for, after all, what is the use of a French bonnet when stuck under a side wall? But though all these were desirous, and desirous in vain, Miss Todd at once secured a place where her head was the cynosure of all the eyes of the congregation. Such was Miss Todd's power, and therefore do we call her great.
And in a week's time the sound of her loud but yet pleasant voice, and the step of her heavy but yet active foot, and the glow of her red cherry cheek were as well known on the esplanade as though she were a Littlebathian of two months' standing. Of course she had found friends there, such friends as one always does find at such places—dear delightful people whom she had met some years before for a week at Ems, or sat opposite to once at the hotel table at Harrowgate for a fortnight. Miss Todd had a very large circle of such friends; and, to do her justice, we must say that she was always glad to see them, and always treated them well. She was ready to feed them at all times; she was not candid or malicious when backbiting them; she never threw the burden of her pleasures on her friends' shoulders—as ladies at Littlebath will sometimes do. She did not boast either of her purse or her acquaintance; and as long as she was allowed to do exactly what she liked she generally kept her temper. She had an excellent digestion, and greatly admired the same quality in other people. She did not much care what she said of others, but dearly liked to have mischief spoken of herself. Some one once had said—or very likely no one had said it, but a soupçon of a hint had in some way reached her own ears—that she had left Torquay without paying her bills. It was at any rate untrue, but she had sedulously spread the report; and now wherever she ordered goods, she would mysteriously tell the tradesman that he had better inquire about her in Devonshire. She had been seen walking one moonlight night with a young lad at Bangor: the lad was her nephew; but some one had perhaps jested about Miss Todd and her beau, and since that time she was always talking of eloping with her own flesh and blood.
But Miss Todd was not a bad woman. She spent much in feeding those who perhaps were not hungry; but she fed the hungry also: she indulged a good deal in silk brocades; but she bought ginghams as well, and calicos for poor women, and flannel petticoats for motherless girls. She did go to sleep sometimes in church, and would sit at a whist-table till two o'clock of a Sunday morning; but having been selected from a large family by an uncle as his heir, she had divided her good things with brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces. And so there were some hearts that blessed her, and some friends who loved her with a love other than that of her friends of Littlebath and Ems, of Jerusalem and Harrowgate.
And she had loved in her early days, and had been told and had believed that she was loved. But evidence had come to her that her lover was a scamp—a man without morals and without principle; and she had torn herself away from him. And Miss Todd had offered to him money compensation, which the brute had taken; and since that, for his sake, or rather for her love's sake, she had rejected all further matrimonial tenders, and was still Miss Todd: and Miss Todd she intended to remain.