“O Lady Cicely,” said Rosa, “how kind of you to come.”
“How kind of you to send to me,” was the polite, but perfectly cool reply. “But how you are gwown, and—may I say impwoved?—You la petite Lusignan! It is incwedible,” lisped her ladyship, very calmly.
“I was only a child,” said Rosa. “You were always so beautiful and tall, and kind to a little monkey like me. Oh, pray sit down, Lady Cicely, and talk of old times.”
She drew her gently to the sofa, and they sat down hand in hand; but Lady Cicely's high-bred reserve made her a very poor gossip about anything that touched herself and her family; so Rosa, though no egotist, was drawn into talking about herself more than she would have done had she deliberately planned the conversation. But here was an old school-fellow, and a singularly polite listener, and so out came her love, her genuine happiness, her particular griefs, and especially the crowning grievance, no society, moped to death, etc.
Lady Cicely could hardly understand the sentiment in a woman who so evidently loved her husband. “Society!” said she, after due reflection, “why, it is a boa.” (And here I may as well explain that Lady Cicely spoke certain words falsely, and others affectedly; and as for the letter r, she could say it if she made a hearty effort, but was generally too lazy to throw her leg over it.) “Society! I'm dwenched to death with it. If I could only catch fiah like other women, and love somebody, I would much rather have a tete-a-tete with him than go teawing about all day and all night, from one unintwisting cwowd to another. To be sure,” said she, puzzling the matter out, “you are a beauty, and would be more looked at.”
“The idea! and—oh no! no! it is not that. But even in the country we had always some society.”
“Well, dyar, believe me, with your appeawance, you can have as much society as you please; but it will boa you to death, as it does me, and then you will long to be left quiet with a sensible man who loves you.”
Said Rosa, “When shall I have another tete-a-tete with YOU, I wonder? Oh, it has been such a comfort to me. Bless you for coming. There—I wrote to Cecilia, and Emily, and Mrs. Bosanquet that is now, and all my sworn friends, and to think of you being the one to come—you that never kissed me but once, and an earl's daughter into the bargain.”
“Ha! ha! ha!”—Lady Cicely actually laughed for once in a way, and did not feel the effort. “As for kissing,” said she, “if I fall shawt, fawgive me. I was nevaa vewy demonstwative.”
“No; and I have had a lesson. That Florence Cole—Florence Whiting that was, you know—was always kissing me, and she has turned out a traitor. I'll tell you all about her.” And she did.