Enjoy herself! A fine injunction, when her brother was going away in such a mood! Yet who would have suspected that rosy, honest apple face of any grievance, save that her partner was missing?
Honora was vexed and concerned at his neglect, but Phœbe appeased her by reporting what Lucy had said. ‘Thoughtless! reckless!’ sighed Honora; ‘if Lucy would leave the poor girl on his hands, of course he is obliged to make some arrangement for getting her home! I never knew such people as they are here! Well, Phœbe, you shall have a partner next time!’
Phœbe had one, thanks chiefly to Rashe, and somehow the rapid motion shook her out of her troubles, and made her care much less for Robin’s sorrows than she had done two minutes before. She was much more absorbed in hopes for another partner.
Alas! he did not come; neither then nor for the ensuing. Owen’s value began to rise.
Miss Charlecote did not again bestir herself in the cause, partly from abstract hatred of waltzes, partly from the constant
expectation of Owen’s reappearance, and latterly from being occupied in a discussion with the excellent mother upon young girls reading novels.
At last, after a galoppe, at which Phœbe had looked on with wishful eyes, Lucilla dropped breathless into the chair which she relinquished to her.
‘Well, Phœbe, how do you like it?’
‘Oh! very much,’ rather ruefully; ‘at least it would be if—’
‘If you had any partners, eh, poor child? Hasn’t Owen turned up?