At length, however, the tedious meal was ended, and Mrs. Barnaby busied herself considerably more than usual in setting the little apartment in order. She made Jerningham carefully brush away the crumbs—a ceremony sometimes neglected—set out her own best pink-lined work-box in state, placed the table agreeably at one of the windows, with two or three chairs round it, and then told Agnes, that if she had any of her lesson-book work to do, she might sit in her own room, for she did not want her.
Gladly was the mandate obeyed, and willingly did she aid Betty Jacks in putting her tiny premises in order, for she was not without hope that her friend Mary would pay her a visit there to talk over the events of the evening; an occupation for which, to say the truth, she felt considerably more inclined than for any "lesson-book work" whatever.
Nor was she disappointed ... hardly did she feel ready to receive her before her friend arrived.
"And well, Carina, how fares it with you to-day? Do you not feel almost too big for your little room after all the triumphs of last night?" was the gay address of Miss Peters as she seated herself upon one of Agnes's boxes. But it was not answered in the same tone; nay, there was much of reproof as well as sadness in the accent with which Agnes uttered,—
"Triumphs!... Oh! Mary, what a word!"
"You are the only one, I believe, who would quarrel with it. Did ever a little country girl under seventeen make a more successful début?"
"Did ever country girl of any age have more reason to feel that she never ought to make any début at all?"
"My poor Agnes!..." said Miss Peters more gravely, "it will not do for you to feel so deeply the follies that may, and, I fear, ever will be committed by your aunt and my aunt Barnaby.... It is a sad, vexing business, beyond all doubt, that you should have to go into company with a woman determined to make herself so outrageously absurd; but it is not fair to remember that, and nothing else ... you should at least recollect also that the most distinguished man in the room paid you the compliment of joining your party at tea."
"Paid me the compliment!... Oh! Mary."
"And oh! Agnes, can you pretend to doubt that it was in compliment to you?... And in compliment to whom was it that he danced with you?"