“Lady Elfrida Glennon! This is really a delightful surprise!”
The haughty beauty shuddered, but almost immediately commanded herself and received her accoster’s effusive address with cold politeness, and then said:
“Let me present you to my husband and daughters. Mr. Force—Col. Anglesea, of the Honorable East India Company’s Service. Col. Anglesea—my husband, Mr. Abel Force, of Mondreer, Maryland. Our daughters, Miss Force, Miss Wynnette, Miss Elva, Miss Meeke.”
While bows were being exchanged the lady quite recovered her self-possession. The party took seats near together, the colonel dropping into a lounging-chair immediately opposite the sofa on which Mrs. Force sat with her daughters—and saying something poetic and complimentary about a perfect rose surrounded by fresh buds, as he gazed upon the beautiful mother and children.
Mr. Force, who occupied another armchair near them, seemed the best pleased of all the group.
“I am really very happy to make your acquaintance, colonel. This is the first time in our rather long married life—look at those great girls!—that I have had the pleasure of meeting any of my wife’s English friends. I hope we shall see a great deal of you. I hope to persuade you to visit us at Mondreer for a few weeks before you return to your native land,” he said, with all his honest, friendly soul in every look and tone.
“Thanks, very much. I shall be but too well pleased. Yes! it is nearly twenty years since we saw each other last, yet the moment I entered this room I recognized Lady Elfrida,” he said.
“Pardon me,” coldly objected the lady. “When I married a citizen of this republic, to live in it, I took my husband’s style with his name, and am called Mrs. Force.”
“Ah! true! precisely! perfectly so! A thousand apologies! I will try to remember.”
And the colonel sank back in his chair.