“But who is she?”
“Arthurine Arthuret? She is a girl, or rather woman, who has some property at Stokesley. In fact, she is one of those magnets that seem to attract inheritance without effort—like the Hapsburgs, though happily she makes a most beneficent, though, sometimes, original use of them.”
“Is not that very dangerous?” said Aunt Lily.
“The first came to her early, and coming into it very young, and overflowing with new ideas, she began rather grotesquely; but she has tamed down a good deal since, and really has done an immense deal of good in finding employment for people, making improvements and the like, though she is Sam’s pet aversion, a tremendous Liberal, almost a Socialist. They are so like cat and dog that Susan and I were really glad to be away from Stokesley, especially at election times; but altogether she is an admirable person.”
Lady Merrifield thought she detected a start of Miss Prescott at the name Stokesley, and that her eyes looked anxiously at the speaker. Bessie was not of the sandy part of the family. Was the unattractive schoolboy, once seen, like his sisters? All that was observable was startling similitudes to her own children, though in them the elements of the handsome dark Mohun generally predominated.
But by and by, in a quiet moment, Bessie suddenly asked, “Did you say her name was Magdalen?”
Lady Merrifield laughed. “Four years may do a good deal at that time of life,” she said. “I suppose no time ever so changes—changes—what shall I say?—eyes—views—characters. Only constancy in absence is the dangerous thing. There are distinguished examples of—of the mischief of being constant without knowing what one is constant to. Virulent constancy, as Mrs. Malaprop has it.”
Magdalen thanked and smiled. Perhaps there was a certain virulent constancy in a remote corner of her heart which had been revived by a certain indescribable look in the eyes and contour of Bessie Merrifield.
And Bessie herself, while sitting under the verandah with Lady Merrifield, while all the others were walking down to embark Lord and Lady Ivinghoe in the yacht, suddenly repeated, “Did you say that her name was Magdalen?”
“Yes; I saw it startled you, my dear.”