“What were you dreaming of?” she said. “Why, you haven’t even got your gloves on.”
“Dear Miss Isabel,” Nellie said, entreaty almost tearful in her voice, “do let me go home now. Indeed I must,—oh do, do, do!”
But “What nonsense, child!” Isabel answered, and bore her along with the others into the brilliantly lighted drawing-room.
Here it was not quite so bad. Nell saw a chair half hidden behind a window-curtain, and felt she had indeed come into a haven of peace when she gained it. No one disturbed her for a time; some of the girls yawned openly, and kept their speech for the arrival of the gentlemen; one or two frankly closed their eyes to show the small appreciation they had for their own sex; the others discussed the men, their moustaches, money, eyes, figures, in a [202] ]way that made the one violet in the room want to shrivel up or turn rosy for the shame of her girlhood.
They all ignored Mamma Browne, who had a spacious velvet sofa all to herself; she would have liked to knit or do something with her fingers, but the girls had told her it wasn’t “good form,” so she only twisted them in and out of each other, and wondered if the people would go at eleven or twelve, and whether they had noticed that only three servants waited instead of the five they always had for the parties.
Then she noticed the little lonely figure in white by the great window. There was a droop about the little sweet mouth and a misty look in the sweet eyes that quite touched her kind old heart. She got up and waddled slowly across the floor. “Come and sit on the sofy with me, dearie,” she said; and all Nellie’s heart went out to her.
The sofa was in a deep window at the end of the room, quite away from the loud-voiced, finely-dressed girls who so overpowered her.
“Oh, do let me stay with you all the time, please!” she said, as she nestled down close to the motherly, capacious-looking old lady. “Oh, it is much nicer here—may I?”
“Why, of course,” said Mrs. Browne; “why, I’ll [203] ]be glad to ’ave you; you ain’t been enjoyin’ yourself, I’m thinkin’?”
“Oh,” said Nellie, who was a polite little soul, even in distress, “oh, it has been very nice, I’m sure, only I don’t go to dinner parties yet, and so I am a little shy, I suppose.”