CHAPTER II
When Mrs. Annandale and her niece repaired to the quarters assigned them, the young lady passed through the room of the elder to the inner apartment, as if she feared that her contumacy might be upbraided. But if Mrs. Annandale felt her armor a burden and was a-wearied with the untoward result of the evening’s campaign she made no sign, but gallantly persevered, realizing the truism that more skill is requisite in conducting a retreat than in leading the most spirited assault. She followed her niece and seated herself by the fire while Arabella at the dressing-table let down her mass of golden hair and began to ply the brush, looking meanwhile at a very disaffected face in the mirror. The youthful maid who officiated for both ladies, monopolized chiefly by Mrs. Annandale, was busied with some duties touching a warming-pan in the outer room, and thus the opportunity for confidential conversation was ample.
“These soldiers talk so much about their hard case,” said the elder lady, looking about her with an appraising eye. “Many folks at home might call this luxury.”
For Captain Howard had exerted his capacity and knowledge to the utmost to compass comfort for his sister and daughter, with the result that he was held to complain without a grievance. A great fire roared in a deep chimney-place—there were no andirons, it is true, but two large dornicks served as well. The log walls were white-washed and glittered with a vaunt of cleanliness. The bed-curtains were pink, and fluttered in a draught from the fire. Rose-tinted curtains veiled the meagre sashes of the glazed windows. The chairs, of the clumsy post manufacture, were big and covered with dressed furs. Buffalo rugs lay before the wide hearth and on the floor. A candle flickered unneeded on the white-draped dressing-table, and there was the glitter of silver and glass and of such bijouterie as dressing-case and jewel-box could send forth. The young girl, now in a pink robe de chambre, seemed in accord with the rude harmony of the place.
“They line their nests right well, these tough soldiers,” said the elder woman. “If it were not for the Indians, and the marching, and the guns, and the noisy powder, and the wild-cats, and the wilderness, one might marry a soldier with a fair prospect. George Mervyn is a handsome young man, Bella.”
“He looks like a sheep,” said Arabella, petulantly. “That long, thin, mild face of his, pale as the powder on his hair, without a spark of spirit, and those stiff side-curls on each side of his head, exactly like a ram’s horns! He looks like a sheep, and he is a sheep.”
With all her unrevealed and secret purposes it was difficult to hold both temper and patience after the strain of the mishaps of the evening. But Mrs. Annandale merely yawned and replied, “I think he is a handsome young man, and much like Sir George.”
“Ba-a-a!—Ba-a-a!”—said the dutiful niece.
The weary little woman still held stanchly on. “I believe you’d rather marry the grandfather.”
“I would—but I don’t choose to marry either.”