"Do you like living in the country, Miss Hubbard?"
"Oh! dear no. London for me. I can't tell what made papa come to this dull place."
"The scenery is very lovely, though."
"People say so. I'm sure I don't know. Scenery wasn't taught where I went to school."
"Were you taught horses there?" asked Thomas, slyly.
"No. That comes by nature. Do you know I won this bracelet in a handicap last Derby?" she said, showing a very fine arm as well as bracelet, though it was only the morning, so-called.
Miss Hubbard had no design upon Thomas. How could she have? She knew nothing about him. She would have done the same with any gentleman she liked well enough to chatter to. And if Thomas felt it and thought that Laura Hubbard was more entertaining than sober Lucy Burton, he made up to Lucy for it in his own idea by asserting to himself that, after all, she was far handsomer than Miss Hubbard, handsome as she was. Yet I should never think of calling Lucy handsome. She was lovely—almost beautiful, too. Handsome always indicates more or less vulgarity—no, I mean commonness—in my ears. And certainly, whatever she might be capable of, had she been blessed with poverty, Miss Hubbard was as common as she was handsome. Thomas was fool enough to revert to Byron to try his luck with that. She soon made him ashamed of showing any liking for such a silly thing as poetry. That piqued him as well, however.
"You sing, I suppose?" he said.
"Oh, yes, when I can't help it—after dinner, sometimes."
"Well, you sing poetry, don't you?"