“Where should she be, madam, at this hour, unless in the hands of her tirewomen? It is but an hour past noon.”
“You lie, knave! She is at hand,” cried the lady, as the musical lilt of a song sounded on the landing above the dozen shallow oak stairs leading out of the square hall, and a couple of fat spaniels, at the sound, lazily left their place on a cushion, and waddled towards the stairs to meet and greet their mistress.
She appeared in the lobby, and stood for a moment or two looking out of a window that commanded a fine view of the trees outside—they were in blossom right down to the wall. She made a lovely picture, with one hand shading her eyes from the sunlight that entered through the small square panes, singing all the time in pure lightness of heart. She wore her brown hair in the short ringlets of the period, and they danced on each side of her face as if they were knowing little sprites for whose ears her singing was meant.
“Wench!” shouted her mother from below. The sprites that danced to the music of the mother's voice were of a heavier order altogether.
“What, mother? I scarce knew that you were journeying hither to-day,” cried Nelly, coming down the stairs. “'T is an honour, and a surprise as well; and, i' faith, now that I come to think on't, the surprise is a deal greater than the honour. If you say you have n't come hither for more money, my surprise will be unbounded.”
It was nothing to Nelly that she spoke loud enough to be heard by the footmen in the hall, as well as by the servants in the kitchen. She knew that they knew all about her, and all about her mother as well. Perhaps some of them had bought oranges from her or her mother in the old days at Drury Lane, before she had become distinguished as an actress, and in other ways.
“I 'm not come for money, though a trifle would be welcome,” said the mother, when Nelly had shown her the way into one of the rooms opening off a corridor at one side of the hall—a large apartment, furnished with ludicrous incongruity. A lovely settee, made by the greatest artist in France, and upholstered in bright tapestry, was flanked by a couple of hideous chairs made by the stage carpenter of Drury Lane, and by him presented to Nelly. A pair of Sèvres vases, which had for some years been in St. James's Palace stood on a side-board among some rubbish of porcelain that Nelly had picked up in the purlieus of Westminster.
The mother was about to seat herself heavily on the gilded settee, when Nelly gave a little scream, startling the elder lady so that she, too, screamed—a little hoarsely—in sympathy.
“What's the matter, girl—what's the matter?” she cried.
“Nothing is the matter, so far, mother, but a mighty deal would have been the matter, if you had seated yourself other where than in that chair.'Snails, madam, who are you that you should plump your person down on a seat that was made for a legitimate monarch?”