She was watching from the window, and ran out on the platform when she saw her old friend alight.
A tall, symmetrically formed figure, attired in a coquettish style, a fair, laughing face, enframed in a golden shower of tangled curls, with blue, or, rather, violet eyes, carnation lips, the most dazzlingly white little pearly teeth, small hands, and dainty, arched feet, shod in high-heeled shoes with gleaming buckles—such would be very crude notes for a description of Blanche Dormer.
The train swept onward, and in a moment the platform was again silent and deserted, leaving Miss Dormer free to indulge in her evidently impulsive nature, by kissing and embracing Lady Quaintree in a very ardent manner. Lady Quaintree could have pardoned her for a little less show of affection, her ladyship being somewhat averse to being made so free with.
“Dearest Lady Quaintree,” cried this young lady, her voice ringing like musical bells, “I am so glad to see you! Mama would have come to meet you, but she is not very well. Papa had to go to dine with Sir Charles Devereux, or he would have come. I have not seen you since those delightful days three years ago, when we had such a delicious ‘time,’ as the Americans say, at that old German bade.”
“My dear, I have brought you a friend—Miss Lois Turquand,” said Lady Quaintree, with gentle dignity. “I hope you two girls will like one another.”
The girls looked into one another’s eyes, and then simultaneously obeyed some mysterious impulse by clasping hands.
“You two were little girls when I last saw you, Miss Blanche,” Lady Quaintree said, as they descended the stairs to enter the carriage.
“I was sixteen, your ladyship,” protested Blanche. “I am nineteen now.”
“Ah! well. Fifteen or sixteen, I suppose, is very young and childish to an old lady like me,” smiled her ladyship.
On their way to The Cedars, the carriage passed the barracks.