“Then you have had a loss. I think it was at our last Melbourne ball, that when she went to the nursery to wish the children good night, one of them—Hubert, I believe—told her to wear that dress when she went to heaven, and dear old Sir Stephen was so delighted that he went straight upstairs to kiss the boy for it.”
“Was that Lady Temple?” said Alick Keith, who having found Miss Grey engaged many deep, joined them again, and at his words came back a thrill of Rachel’s old fear and doubt as to the possible future.
“Yes,” said the Colonel; “I was recollecting the gracious vision she used to be at all our chief’s parties.”
“Vision, you call her, who lived in the house with her? What do you think she was to us—poor wretches—coming up from barracks where Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was our cynosure? There was not one of us to whom she was not Queen of the East, and more, with that innocent, soft, helpless dignity of hers!”
“And Sir Stephen for the first of her vassals,” said the Colonel.
“What a change it has been!” said Alick.
“Yes; but a change that has shown her to have been unspoilable. We were just agreeing on the ball-room perfections of her and your sister in their several lines.”
“Very different lines,” said Alick, smiling.
“I can’t judge of Fanny’s,” said Rachel, “but your sister is almost enough to make one believe there can be some soul in young lady life.”
“I did not bring Bessie here to convert you,” was the somewhat perplexing answer.