FOUR IN A FLY.
A few days before Christmas, Emma and I were taking a constitutional (a walk for duty, not for pleasure) between two bare uninteresting hedges, about a mile from Stonebrook. We had been stitching all the morning at the dress in which I was to make my début at the Abbey—a rich white satin, long and plain, which Emma had worn but once, and that fitted me with surprisingly little alteration, beyond lengthening the skirt.
This tramp along a muddy footpath was the result of my companion’s extreme anxiety with respect to my complexion! I had been forced abroad—much against my inclination—to “get a color.” As we trudged together, in somewhat gloomy silence, a smart little sandy-haired horse-woman trotted gaily by, followed by a groom. She glanced at us carelessly in passing, looked back, and finally drew up short. It was Mrs. Cholmondeley.
“Oh, so pleased to meet you!” she cried vivaciously. “How do you do, Mrs. Hayes?” nodding carelessly to Emma. Then, leaning down, and addressing me particularly, “I’m having a party to-morrow night, some music and a little dance. It would be a big dance if I had anything to do with it; but Jack won’t hear of that. He declares that it keeps people up too late, and hunting people should all be up at cockcrow. However, this function to-morrow will be over early, and I shall be so glad if you can come! I’m rather short of girls—of pretty ones, I mean. I can reckon on any number of plain ones!”
Who could resist such an invitation? I hesitated. I felt my face becoming rather warm. Surely I had a color now! Mrs. Cholmondeley was struck by it, for she exclaimed—
“Oh, my dear! I wish I had your complexion!—your lovely roses!”
She was not aware that I owed my lovely roses to the fact that she had ignored Emma as absolutely as if she had been my nurse.
“You know it’s only for young people, Mrs. Hayes,” she explained. “It would bore you to death. Chaperons are quite exploded, and girls go about everywhere now by themselves.”
“So I hear,” answered Emma, meekly. “And I am sure Gwen would be delighted to accept your kind invitation; but I don’t think she could very well go alone, and it’s a long drive.”
“I can easily settle all that. The Bennys shall call for her. Leave it all to me, please, and I’ll arrange everything. I’ll chaperon her myself, and take every care of her. Remember, she is to wear her smartest frock, and bring her roses.”