"Mrs. Caggett, let me introduce Miss Denis."
Mrs. Caggett rose, made a kind of plunge, intended for a curtsey, and subsided again, muttering incoherently.
"Miss Denis, Mrs. Graham. Mrs. Graham is our musician. She sings and plays most beautifully!"
Mrs. Graham, who was a pretty brunette, with lovely teeth, shook hands with Helen, and smiled significantly, as much as to say, "You must not mind Mrs. Creery."
"Miss Denis, Mrs. King.—Mrs. King has a nice little girl, and lives at Viper."
"Miss Denis, Mrs. Logan, our authoress." Poor Mrs. Logan blushed till the tears came into her eyes, and said,—
"Oh, Mrs. Creery, please don't."
"Nonsense, nonsense! Miss Denis, she has written the sweetest poetry—one really exquisite ode, called, let me see, 'The Lifer's Lament,' and numbers of charming sonnets! You must get her to read them to you, some day."
Alas for Mrs. Logan! who in a moment of foolish expansiveness had mentioned her small poems (under the seal of secrecy) to another lady, and had, to her horror, "awoke and found herself famous!"
"Mrs. Manners, Miss Denis," and she paused, as if deliberating on what she could possibly say for Mrs. Manners.