The Misses Woolcot.
Friday Evening.
Dancing. R.S.V.P.
Meg left out the “prior engagement” this time [173] ]in her reply, and merely “regretted the Misses Woolcot could not have the pleasure, etc.”
But the girls gushed over Nellie just as much whenever they met her. She used to go occasionally to the Parsonage to play mild tennis with Mr. Macintosh’s delicate son, who had been ordered the exercise. The Misses Browne also went there at times; they considered that to visit there on equal terms was a hall mark of gentility, and persevered therefore, even though they yawned afterwards all through the drive home.
They always drove wherever they were going, they seemed to think foot exercise below them. It was even said that when they went to return a call of the Macarthys who lived two doors off, they went in their great open carriage, with high-stepping horses, coachman, and footman complete. So, also, whenever they went to the little homely Parsonage on the hill top, the imposing equipage took them there, the footman stood in petrified state while they alighted, and afterwards handed the two racquets out with as much ceremony as if he was assisting in some public function.
Innate good taste sometimes whispered to Nellie that these things ought not to be so, but she generally chose to be conveniently blind.
How could she find fault with them when they [174] ]petted her and flattered her till her silly little head was swimming? when they pressed gifts upon her,—a gold bangle that one of them wore and she had admired, a brooch with a tiny chrysophrase heart, even a parasol composed of billowy chiffon. She had the good sense certainly to refuse the presents, though she looked at them with longing eyes, but none the less she admired and envied girls who had it in their power to make the offers.
“Your people seem determined not to come to our house,” Miss Isabel said one day on the Parsonage tennis ground.
“They—they have so many engagements,” said Nellie, with hesitating mendacity and a blush of distress. What would they say if they knew the contempt the cards met with at Misrule?
Miss Browne spoke of the great ballroom at Trafalgar House, of illuminated grounds, of the throngs of guests; to Nellie, who had not yet been allowed more harmful dissipation than tea-parties, picnics, and children’s romps, it sounded entrancing. “Yes, I should love to come,” she said wistfully, as they once again regretted she should not give the world an opportunity to see her beauty.