“No!” said Harriet, shaking her head, “I felt too ill to eat. But it does not signify, thank you!”
“But you are looking quite upset! Supper cannot be ready for another hour. I will go and make you a cup of tea!”
She hurried from the room again, and presently returned with a small tray on which was set a Sèvres cup and saucer and Apostle teaspoon, with an earthenware teapot that may possibly have cost sixpence. But Harriet was too grateful for the tea to cavil whence it came, and drinking it refreshed her more than anything else could have done.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” she said to Miss Wynward, “I think the long journey and the boat had been too much for me. I feel much better now!”
“It is such a melancholy house to come to when one is out of sorts,” observed her companion, “I have felt that myself! It will not give you a good impression of your first visit to London. Her ladyship wrote me you had just come from the West Indies,” she added, timidly.
“Yes! I have not long arrived in Europe,” replied Harriet. “But I thought—I fancied—the Baroness gave me the idea that the Red House was particularly gay and cheerful, and that so many people visited her here!”
“That is true! A great many people visit here! But—not such people, perhaps, as a young lady would care for!”
“O! I care for every sort,” said Harriet, more gaily, “and you,—don’t you care for company, Miss Wynward?”
“I have nothing to do with it, Miss Brandt, beyond seeing that the proper preparations are made for receiving it. I am Bobby’s governess, and housekeeper to the Baroness!”
“Bobby is getting rather tall for a governess!” laughed Harriet.