"George Eliot was a woman," remarked Lily, leaning back in her corner, tremulous with heroically-repressed amusement.
"You may be right, dear; but it isn't a common name for a woman. Of course, there's George Sand. But if you are right, how lucky I did not speak about his novels to Sir George! He would not have liked being mistaken for someone else. Some of those literary men are so sensitive."
"But, you see, he did not write any of those novels," said Lily, with a sudden little spasm of laughter.
"No, dear, that is just what I was saying. How you catch one up! My dearest, I am so glad you enjoyed yourself this evening. Sometimes I have thought you looked a little bored and tired. Really, London is charming! So much jeu d'esprit about it, is there not? And to-morrow we dine at Lady Conybeare's! How pleasant, and what a wonderful dress she had on this evening! She made me feel quite a dodo—I should say a dowdy."
Lily broke into a sudden peal of laughter, and her mother beamed good-humouredly.
"Laughing again at your poor mother," she said, patting her hand. "You are always laughing, Lily; you are a perfect fille de joie. Dear me! I'm always saying the wrong word. Here we are, darling. Get out very carefully, because my dress is all over."
Lily stepped out into a perfect mob of powdered footmen who lined the steps of the Murchison mansion. Mrs. Murchison, when she took her house, gave what she called bête noire to a celebrated firm of London decorators (meaning, it is to be supposed, carte blanche) to make it as elegant and refined as money could. The result was an impression of extraordinary opulence; and the eminent firm of decorators, wise in their generation, had pleased Mrs. Murchison very well. Not the smallest part of her gratification was the immense sum she had to pay them. Money meant almost nothing to her, but it meant a good deal to other people; and to be able to say truthfully that one ceiling had cost a couple of thousand pounds was a solid cause of self-congratulation. Indeed, the contemplation of the cheque she had drawn pleased her nearly as much as what the cheque had accomplished.
She paused a moment in the hall, while one footman took off her cloak and handed it to another, and looked contentedly round on the stamped leather and the old oak, the Louis XIV. chairs, the Nankin ware, and the Persian rugs; and her mind went back for a second to the days of pitch-pine and horsehair, and in her excellent heart there rose a sudden thrill of thankfulness. Lily was already on the stairs, and her mother's eye followed her, and rested there so long that the third footman had closed the door, and stood to attention, waiting for her to move. And one hair of Lily's head was dearer to her than all the old oak and the opulence and the powdered footmen. She gave a heavy sigh, all mother.
"Put the lights out, William," she said, "or is it Thomas?"