The son of the Collector hesitated for a moment. He had his own ideas of getting on in the world. They were not Jack's—his, he knew, would never succeed. And they were not exactly Corinne's—she was too particular. The fence was evidently the best place for him.
“Would be rather a bore, wouldn't it?” he replied evasively, with a laugh. “Lives up under the roof, I guess, wears a dyed wig, got Cousin Mary Ann's daguerreotype on the mantle, and tells you how Uncle Ephraim—”
The door opened and Jack's aunt swept in. She never walked, or ambled, or stepped jauntily, or firmly, or as if she wanted to get anywhere in particular; she SWEPT in, her skirts following meekly behind—half a yard behind, sometimes.
Corinne launched the inquiry at her mother, even before she could return Garry's handshake. “Who's Miss Grayson, mamma?”
“I don't know. Why, my child?”
“Well, she says she knows you. Met you in Washington.”
“The only Miss Grayson I ever met in Washington, my dear, was an old maid, the niece of the Secretary of State. She kept house for him after his wife died. She held herself very high, let me tell you. A very grand lady, indeed. But she must be an old woman now, if she is still living. What did you say her first name was?”
Corinne took the open letter from Jack's hand. “Felicia... Yes, Felicia.”
“And what does she want?—money for some charity?” Almost everybody she knew, and some she didn't, wanted money for some charity. She was loosening her cloak as she spoke, Frederick standing by to relieve my lady of her wraps.
“No; she's going to give a tea and wants us all to come. She's the sister of that old man who came to see Jack the other night, and—”