"I knew she was somebody," Mrs. Greenwood exclaimed. "Lady Betty—did you hear? And what a vastly genteel young man!—one of her admirers, no doubt. Well, girls, shall we take a turn? For my part I am getting sleepy;" and a prolonged yawn, which was heard as well as seen, announced the fact to those who were near that Mrs. Greenwood had had enough of the Pump Room for that day.
"My dear girl!" Lady Betty exclaimed when Griselda joined her. "Who will you take up with next? Those vulgar folks! Did you ever see anything like the feet of the young one? I declare I'd wear a longer gown if I had such duck's feet!—and the waddle matches—look!"
Lady Betty's giggle was a well-known sound in any society she honoured with her presence, and when she could get a companion like the empty-headed Lord Basingstoke, she delighted to sit and "quiz" those whom she thought beneath her in the social scale.
"Griselda! She is offended. Look how she is strutting off! He! he! he!"
And Lord Basingstoke echoed the laugh in a languid fashion, Lady Betty leaning back and looking up at him with what she thought her most bewitching smile.
"I think it is very ill-bred to make remarks on people!" Griselda said, "and very unkind to hurt their feelings, as you must have hurt that lady's."
Griselda spoke with some vehemence, which she was apt to do, when her feelings were strongly moved.
"You see how I'm lectured," Lady Betty said, with the usual accompaniment—"the giggling fugue," as her enemies called it. "Griselda," she said, trying to hide her vexation, "you are very good to look after my behaviour. Poor little me! I want someone, don't I, Mr. Travers? It is news to hear I am 'ill-bred.' What next, I wonder?"
But Griselda held her own, and repeated:
"I must think it ill-bred in any society to turn other folks into ridicule, and I am quite sure no one can call it kind!"