‘There,’ said Arthur, as the lady passed on, ‘that is the greatest person in the house, hardly excepting my aunt. That is Miss Altisidora Standaloft, her ladyship’s own maid.’
Violet’s feelings might somewhat resemble those of the Emperor Julian when he sent for a barber, and there came a count of the empire.
‘She must have wanted to look at you,’ proceeded Arthur, ‘or she would never have treated us with such affability. But come along, here is Theodora’s room.’
It was a cheerful apartment, hung with prints, with somewhat of a school-room aspect, and in much disorder. Books and music lay confused with blue and lilac cottons, patterns, scissors, and papers covered with mysterious dots; there were odd-looking glass bottles on the mantel-shelf with odder looking things in them, and saucers holding what Violet, at home, would have called messes; the straw-bonnet lay on the floor, and beside it the Scotch terrier, who curled up his lips, showed his white teeth, and greeted the invaders with a growl, which became a bark as Arthur snapped his fingers at him. ‘Ha! Skylark, that is bad manners. Where’s your mistress? Theodora!’
At the call, the door of the inner room opened, but only a little dark damsel appeared, saying, in a French accent, that Miss Martindale was gone to Miss Gardner’s room.
‘Is Miss Gardner here?’ exclaimed Arthur.
‘She is arrived about half an hour ago,’ was the reply. Arthur uttered an impatient interjection, and Violet begged to know who Miss Gardner was.
‘A great friend of Theodora’s. I wish she would have kept further off just now, not that she is not a good-natured agreeable person enough, but I hate having strangers here. There will be no good to be got out of Theodora now! There are two sisters always going about staying at places, the only girls Theodora ever cared for; and just now, Georgina, the youngest, who used to be a wild fly-away girl, just such as Theodora herself, has gone and married one Finch, a miserly old rogue, that scraped up a huge fortune in South America, and is come home old enough for her grandfather. What should possess Theodora to bring Jane here now? I thought she would never have forgiven them. But we may as well come down. Here’s the staircase for use and comfort.’
‘And here is the hall! Oh!’ cried Violet, springing towards it, ‘this really is the Dying Gladiator. Just like the one at Wrangerton!’
‘What else should he be like!’ said Arthur, laughing. ‘Every one who keeps a preserve of statues has the same.’