‘Yes,’ said Phœbe, dreamily, and she would have gone back to Robin’s sorrows, but Honora had learnt that there were subjects to be set aside when it was incumbent on her to be presentable, and directed the talk to speculations whether the poor schoolmistress would have nerve to sing; and somehow she talked up Phœbe’s spirits to such a hopeful pitch, that the little maiden absolutely was crossed by a gleam of satisfaction from the ungrateful recollection that poor Miss Charlecote had done with the affair. Against her will, she had detected the antagonism between the two, and bad as it was of Lucy, was certain that she was more likely to be amenable where there was no interference from her best friend.
The music-room was already crowded when the two made their way into it, and Honora’s inclination was to deposit herself on the nearest seat, but she owed something otherwise to her young charge, and Phœbe’s eyes had already found a lonely black figure with arms crossed, and lowering brow. Simultaneously they moved towards him, and he towards them. ‘Is she come down?’ he asked.
Phœbe shook her head, but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, and good-natured plain face.
Robert’s face cleared with relief; he evidently detected nothing outré in Lucilla’s aspect, and was rejoicing in the concession. Woman’s eyes saw further; a sigh from Honora, an amused murmur around him, caused him to bend his looks on Phœbe. She knew his eyes were interrogating her, but could not bear to let her own reply, and kept them on the ground.
He was moving towards Lucilla, who, having consigned her protegée to the good-humoured German, had come more among the guests, and was exchanging greetings and answering comments with all her most brilliant airs of saucy animation.
And who could quarrel with that fairy vision? Her rich
double-skirted watered silk was bordered with exquisitely made and coloured flies, radiant with the hues of the peacock, the gold pheasant, the jay, parrots of all tints, everything rich and rare in plumage. A coronal of the same encircled her glossy hair, the tiny plumes contrasting with the blonde ringlets, and the bonâ fide hooks ostentatiously displayed; lesser and more innocuous flies edged the sleeves, corsage, shoes, and gloves; and her fan, which she used as skilfully as Jenny Wren, presented a Watteau-like picture of an angling scene. Anything more daintily, quaintly pretty could not be imagined, and the male part of the assembly would have unanimously concurred in Sir Harry Buller’s ‘three cheers for the queen of the anglers.’
But towards the party most concerned in her movements, Lucilla came not; and Phœbe, understanding a desire to keep as near as might be to Miss Murrell, tried to suggest it as the cause, and looking round, saw Owen standing by Miss Charlecote, with somewhat of an uneasy countenance.
‘Terribly hot here,’ he said, restlessly; ‘suffocating, aren’t you, Honor? Come and take a turn in the cloister; the fountain is stunning by moonlight.’
No proposal could have been more agreeable to Honora; and Phœbe was afraid of losing her chaperon, though she would rather have adhered to her brother, and the barbs of that wicked little angler were tearing him far too deeply to permit him to move out of sight of his tormentor.