“There’s the French gray velvet and point, my lady. That’s more of a dress than this; but perhaps it’s too much for a house-party. You will want to keep it for a dinner; there are sure to be several while we’re here. I think this one will be the best for to-night, after all.” And she shook out with a loving hand a soft, creamy silk with touches of sea-blue flowers—a darling dress, which only a woman with Esmeralda’s wonderful hair and complexion could venture upon.
“I don’t care; only let me look well to-night,” said Esmeralda, almost feverishly; and Barker nodded and glanced at her curiously, and yet approvingly.
“You’ll do that, whatever you wear, my lady,” she said, with perfect honesty. “I’m glad your ladyship takes an interest— I beg your pardon, my lady, but you never seemed to care at Deepdale.”
“That was different,” said Esmeralda, hurriedly, and in a low voice, as she turned over some of her costly jewels with a hasty hand.
“Certainly—so it was, my lady. There was no one to see you—begging his lordship’s pardon for calling him no one—but I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Esmeralda broke in, with an impatience so novel that Barker was almost startled. “Let me look my best—my very best, please. What is that way Lady Ada does her hair?”
Barker shook her head and smiled.
“Lady Ada does her hair very nicely, my lady,” she said, “and it suits her, because her hair is short and doesn’t go so far, and that way makes the most of it; but there’s no need for you to have it done like that, with the mass your ladyship has got.”
“Do you think mine prettier than Lady Ada’s?” said Esmeralda; and then she blushed with shame at her question. What had come to her?
Barker smiled.