"Yes, very pretty," went on Esther, severely, "and when she was in London she was presented at Court, and went out a great deal, and that's when old Sir Piers first saw her and wanted to make her Lady Tracey."
"For her sins! I am sure there could be no other reason for such a punishment," again interjected Miss Darling, piously.
"Ah, but Sir Piers was a gay young baronet in those days," said Esther, with decision. "Any girl might have hesitated before she gave him his congé. However, that's neither here nor there. Margaret Newbold was a very great favourite; and one evening, at a big dinner party at a tremendously swell house, she was given a proportionately great grandee as a cavalier. This very high-bred personage began by staring at her, up and down and round and about, through his eye-glasses and over them; and when he found this was not in the least discomposing to the young woman, but that she talked on glibly to her left-hand neighbour, he gave a loud 'ahem!' and said, so that all the company might hear: 'Ah—miss—ah—I perceive, though you are an American, you speak English quite fluently—ah——' Margaret eyed him for a moment over the rim of her wine-glass, and then replied, with calm distinctness and an air of inward satisfaction: 'Well—yes—ah—Mr.—I do. You see, the missionary who converted our tribe was an Englishman, and he taught us the language.' Then she went on eating her fish, quite undisturbed by the shouts of laughter that went up at the expense of her unfortunate questioner."
"Served him right, too," cried Miss Darling, indignantly. "I never heard of anything so caddish. We might just as well ask, in an off-hand, jovial kind of a way, if it's because they have so many H's lying round loose, that they forget to pick 'em up and use 'em in the right places! And one might suppose so, you know, with reason, judging from some of the specimens we get over here."
"It's very trying," broke in Baby Leonard, plaintively; "I can't get both sides of my face to look alike, and this crème impératrice is so sticky! What shall I do?"
"Leave it all alone," cried Miss Darling, brusquely. "You can't improve on nature, Baby—it's no use! 'Bad's the best,' as my old mammy-nurse used to say. You won't make your eyes any the larger or prettier by painting them a distinct violet, and your mouth's a far better shape left to its own lines; you can't make a Cupid's bow out of it, try as you may."
"Only listen to Dick the virtuous!" laughed Esther. "She positively waxes eloquent on the shams of the hour, and is developing a soul above frivolities! We shall have her quoting Carlyle next; or, stay, I know what it will be. What's that sentimental couplet, Dick, tucked carefully away beneath your pot of 'cherry-lip,' in your new silver-mounted toilette des ongles? Is this the way it runs:
'Why send me to this little girl?
Sure such a gift were silly!
Can I add lustre to the pearl,
Or paint the gilded lily?'"
"Oh, Esther, you're a brute!" cried poor Dick, the tears actually in her eyes, her cheeks very red. "How could you? It's only—only some stupid little lines about a still more stupid joke. They don't mean me at all."
"And then, fancy Dick being compared to a pearl, and a lily—a painted lily!" exclaimed Miss James, in her most disagreeable voice, and with a slow smile creeping over her face.