Chapter Eighteen.
With the New Year—or, rather, in advance of it—Peggy’s youngest sister arrived at the Hall. Mrs Chadwick had invited the entire family; but the Midland doctor could not leave her practice, and the children of the married niece had inconveniently developed whooping-cough; so Sophy, the architect, had divided her holiday, spending Christmas with her married sister and coming on to the Hall for the finish of the festivities, which included a dance to be held on New Year’s Eve and a round of somewhat dull dinners and similar entertainments wherewith the Chadwicks’ guests sought to make a return of hospitality.
Sophy hated dinner-parties, but she looked forward with considerable enthusiasm to the coming dance. Mrs Chadwick had provided both nieces with dresses for the occasion, and, in order that these independent young women should not feel unduly indebted, she called these her Christmas gifts.
“Aunt Ruby is a brick,” remarked Sophy, as she surveyed herself complacently in the mirror in her sister’s room and wondered what use the gauzy creation would serve when she got back to her plans and her desk. “I look really chic, don’t I?”
“You look sweet,” Peggy said with warm sincerity; and her sister caught her round the waist and drew her to the glass and stood holding her and surveying their double reflections with critical, unenvious eyes.
“I look just a plain young gawk beside you,” she said. “You are pretty, Peggy. You grow prettier every year. Is the masculine breast of Moresby susceptible?—or is Moresby wholly feminine? A bachelor—an eligible bachelor—would be an anomaly in a place like this.”
“There is John,” said Peggy, smiling.
Her sister’s brows lifted ironically.