CHAPTER IV
And instead of ‘dearest Miss,’
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren.—C. Lamb
The ladies of the house were going to a ball, and were in full costume: Eloïsa a study for the Arabian Nights, and Lucilla in an azure gossamer-like texture surrounding her like a cloud, turquoises on her arms, and blue and silver ribbons mingled with her blonde tresses.
Very like the clergyman’s wife!
O sage Honor, were you not provoked with yourself for being so old as to regard that bewitching sprite, and marvel whence comes the cost of those robes of the woof of Faerie?
Let Oberon pay Titania’s bills.
That must depend on who Oberon is to be.
Phœbe, to whom a doubt on that score would have appeared high treason, nevertheless hated the presence of Mr. Calthorp as much as she could hate anything, and was in restless anxiety as to Titania’s behaviour. She herself had no cause to complain, for she was at once singled out and led away from Miss Charlecote, to be shown some photographic performances, in which Lucy and her cousin had been dabbling.
‘There, that horrid monster is Owen—he never will come out respectable. Mr. Prendergast, he is better, because you don’t see his face. There’s our school, Edna Murrell and all; I flatter myself that is a work of art; only this little wretch fidgeted, and muddled himself.’
‘Is that the mistress? She does not look like one.’