Lady Beatrice came out of her room in the great gallery and they went down together.
"You do look so pretty, Miss Bush," she said. "What a duck of a frock! It looks like an Ermantine."
"Yes, my sister is a saleswoman there, and she had it made for me," Katherine told her.—"I am glad you think it looks well. I have never had on a real evening dress before."
"You know how to wear it so that is all right! Ah, children, come along!" as three joyous calls came from over the banisters. And Katherine slipped on alone. Lady Garribardine had told her, before she went to dress, to go to Bronson to see that a special order about the presents was carried out.
All the party were assembled in the great drawing-room when this duty was done, and so her entrance did not pass unremarked.
"By Jove!" was the significant exclamation of old Colonel Hawthorne.
"And I am to have the pleasure of taking you in to dinner," said the charming young man who had so far succeeded in diverting Lady Beatrice.
Gerard Strobridge felt a strange sensation as he looked at Katherine presently, between the great bowls of camellias—there was no comparison with anyone at the table; Her Ladyship's secretary had blossomed forth into the beauty of the night.
"How clothes can alter a person!" Mrs. Delemar said without conscious spite—dependents, even pretty ones, were not things which counted.—"Look, G.—dear Sarah's typist appears quite pretty to-night, and how kind she is to her servants; see, she has let the girl have those beautiful lilies of the valley which Hawke told me to-day when you were making him give me the orchids, it just breaks his heart to have to cut!"