At intervals down the sides the Misses Fitzroy-Browne, in decolleté dresses of latest style.
Sandwiched with them and other females with large bare arms and rough, fashionably-coiffeured
hair, net-covered, men of various sorts and conditions,—self-made men like their host, who came [196] ]to approve the show money could make; a few of better position, who enjoyed the wines and good dinner and despised the vulgarity of the givers; a good-looking adventurer or two of higher society, remittance men, who, having almost outrun the constable, as a last resource came heiress-hunting.
In the middle of one side Mr. Adolphus Fitzroy-Browne, with a large expanse of white shirt front, a pink-edged tie, great diamond studs, and a red silk sash tied at one side instead of a waistcoat.
[And away down] near one end, a stout American Hebrew, dinner intent, on one side, a young man of the puppy order on the other, sat Nellie,—Nellie, looking like a little lonely field flower sprung up in a bed of gaudy dahlias,—Nellie, in a white, simple dress of home make, high-necked, long-sleeved, with the dying pink roses at her breast, and a silver “wish” bangle that cost half-a-crown for her only jewellery.
Poor little Nell! Never perhaps in all her fifteen years had she been so immeasurably miserable and uncomfortable.
In the drawing-room the women had stared her up and down in scorn, and rustled about in voluminous silken and velvet skirts; the thought of her own plain, high-necked dress made her cheeks burn. The Misses Browne had been too busy with [197] ]entertaining to do more than give her a nod and a word or two as they introduced several of the men to her.
“Daughter of Captain John Woolcot,” she overheard one of them whisper once,—“poor, but of very good family, related to a title; great friend of dear Isabel’s; pretty little thing, yes; quite a charity to show her some life.”
Nellie had blushed hotly, and shrunk back into a corner. Oh, if only there had been a door near and she could have slipped out and flown through the night back to dear, despised Misrule. If only the floor would open and mercifully swallow her out of sight! If only there was a window near, through which she could make her exit from Trafalgar House for ever! But alas! the drawing-room was upstairs here, and there were no convenient tanks and thickly-wooded creepers such as had made [her descent from] her own bedroom almost easy. There was a little patch of green on her skirt, and a pin held together a ripped flounce, but, certainly, no one in that gay assemblage suspected her of leaving her own home by any more unusual mode of exit than the front door. It was even worse when a move was made towards the dining-room, and she was assigned to a youth in a chokingly high collar, a youth who said ya-as and haw, and left out his r’s [198] ]and g’s because he had been told it was “as done in London.”
She was in a hot state of nervous distress even when no one was speaking to her; it was increased tenfold when she found this man evidently expected her to talk and be talked to all the time.