The earl gave many directions how his beautiful and stately wife was to be received; how the Anderley church bells were to ring, the servants be ready; how a grand dinner was to be prepared an hour later than usual, so as to make allowance for any little delay in traveling.
"I trust everything to you, Doris," said the earl, "and I know that I may safely do so; you will keep your promise."
He trusted well. Her energy and quickness were not to be surpassed. Every arrangement was made, every trifling detail attended to, and the astonished servants, looking at each other in wonder, owned that their young lady was a "regular locomotive" when she liked. Great fires were burning in the dressing-rooms, the bedrooms—every place where she thought a fire would be pleasant.
"The Countess of Linleigh shall have the three things that I like best to welcome her home," she said, laughingly.
"What are those?" asked Mattie.
"Warmth, light, and flowers. Those are three grand luxuries, Mattie, and if people either appreciated them better, or cared more about them, the world would be a much more comfortable dwelling-place than it is now."
Lady Doris took especial pains over her own toilet that evening. The Countess of Linleigh was a duke's daughter, and her good opinion was worth having. She wished to impress her favorably, and she knew that she must choose the happy medium. She must not be too plain—that would seem like rusticity: nor too magnificent—that would be ostentation.
"I wish now," she said to herself, "that I had never gone near Downsbury Castle: it was one of the most unfortunate things I ever did in my life. I wonder what she thought of me that day?"
She did look exceedingly beautiful when she was dressed. She had chosen a costume of pale lilac silk, with golden ornaments. The silk was shaded by fine white lace—nothing could have suited her better. The ripples of golden hair were drawn loosely together, and fastened with a diamond arrow; the lovely face, with its dainty flush and bright, deep eyes; the lovely mouth, so like the soft petals of a rose; the white, graceful neck, the polished, pearly shoulders, the rounded arms—all made up a picture not often seen. Mattie looked at her in honest amaze.
"You are very beautiful; you dazzle my eyes, dear," she said. "What shall you do with your beauty, Doris?"