“No, ma'am, it is not; it belongs to your very humble servant,”—here she courtesied to the ground,-“who regrets deeply that its tone should not have more of your approbation.”
“And I, ma'am,” said a fat old lady, waddling over, and wheezing as though she should choke, “I have to express my sorrow that the book-shelf, which you have just ransacked, should not present something worthy of your notice. The volumes are mine.”
“And perhaps, ma'am,” cried a third, a little meagre figure, with a voice like a nutmeg-grater, “you could persuade the old lady, who I presume is your mother, to take her feet off that worked stool. When I made it, I scarcely calculated on the honor it now enjoys!”
Lady Eleanor looked up at this instant, and although unconscious of what was passing, seeing Helen, whose face was now crimson, standing in the midst of a very excited group, she arose hastily, and said,—
“Helen, dearest, is there anything the matter?”
“I should say there was, ma'am,” interposed the very fat lady,—“I should be disposed to say there was a great deal the matter. That to make use of private articles as if they were for house use, to thump one lady's piano, to toss another lady's books, to make oneself comfortable in a chair specially provided for the oldest boarder, with one's feet on another lady's footstool,—these are liberties, ma'am, which become something more than freedoms when taken by unknown individuals.”
“I beg you will forgive my daughter and myself,” said Lady Eleanor, with an air of real regret; “our total ignorance—”
“I thought as much, indeed,” muttered she of the shaking head; “there is no other word for it.”
“You are quite correct, ma'am,” said Lady Eleanor, at once addressing her in the most apologetic of voices,-“I cannot but repeat the word; our very great ignorance of the usages observed here is our only excuse, and I beg you to believe us incapable of taking such liberties in future.”
If anything could have disarmed the wrath of this Holy Alliance, the manner in which these words were uttered might have done so. Far from it, however. When the softer sex are deficient in breeding, mercy is scarcely one of their social attributes. Had Lady Eleanor assumed towards them the manner with which in other days she had repelled vulgar attempts at familiarity, they would in all probability have shrunk back, abashed and ashamed; but her yielding suggested boldness, and they advanced, with something like what in Cossack warfare is termed a “Hurra,” an indiscriminate clang of voices being raised in reprobation of every supposed outrage the unhappy strangers had inflicted on the company. Amid this Babel of accusation Lady Eleanor could distinguish nothing, and while, overwhelmed by the torrent, she was preparing to take her daughter's arm and withdraw, the door which led into the dining-room was suddenly thrown open, and the convivial party entered en masse.