“I thought my cousin was to be here,” said Lettice, glancing over the company.
“Ay, Tom asked him, I believe,” said Gertrude. “Maybe his Lord could not spare him. Do you miss him?”
“I would like to have seen him,” said Lettice innocently.
“Tom would not love to hear you say so much, I can tell you,” laughed Gertrude. “He admires you very much, Lettice. Oh, do let us drop the ‘Mistress’—it is so stiff and sober—I hate it.”
“Me!” was all that it occurred to Lettice to answer.
“You. Don’t you like men to admire you?”
“I don’t know; they never did.”
Gertrude went off into a soft explosion of silvery laughter.
“O Lettice, you are good! You have been brought up with all those sober, starched old gentlewomen, till you don’t know what life is—why, my dear, you might as well be a nun!”
“Don’t I know what life is?” said Lettice. “I’ve had twenty years of it.”