"I am quite up in all the Port Blair news and Port Blair secrets, you know. I've heard a great deal about a certain gentleman."
Helen became what is known as "all colours," and her two cousins "all ears;" to them she had positively denied that she had left the ghost of an admirer to lament her departure from the Andaman Islands.
"Oh, you know who I mean, I can see," continued the old lady playfully. "She had any number of offers," addressing herself rather triumphantly to the Miss Platts, "but Mr. Quentin is to be the happy man," and here the wretched old woman, actually winked at Clara and Caroline.
"Indeed, indeed, Lady Grubb, you are quite mistaken!" cried Helen hastily. "Mr. Quentin is nothing to me but a mere acquaintance, and as to anything else, Mrs. Creery—was—was joking!"
"Oh, well, well, we won't say a word about it now, but you must come and spend a long day with me soon and tell me everything! I feel as if I know you quite well, having heard of you so often from Maria. I'll just leave my card for your aunt, and now I must really be going," standing up as she spoke. "I suppose Scully is waiting" (presumably the uncouth coachman).
The Miss Platts did not ring the bell, neither did they deign to rise from their chairs, but merely closed their eyes at their visitor, as she made a kind of "shy," intended for a curtsey, and wishing them "good afternoon," departed with considerable precipitation.
Helen went downstairs, and conducted Lady Grubb to the hall-door, and presently saw her bowled away in her yellow chariot, with a brace of pugs in her lap.
She was not a very distinguished person certainly, but she meant to be friendly, to be kind, and a little of these commodities went a long way with her now. She blushed, when she recalled her cousins' deportment. Surely an Andamanese female, in her own premises (were they hole or tree), would have shown more civility to a stranger. As she entered the drawing-room, the Miss Platts exclaimed in one breath,—
"What a creature! Who is she?"
"She looks like an old cook!" supplemented Carrie. "I was trembling lest any of our friends should come in."