“Really, Mrs Dean, you—you shock me. I could not think of—er—really—er—I will try my best.”
“That you will, I know, Mr Denville. Don’t take any notice of mamma I hope Miss Denville and Mrs Burnett are well.”
“In the best of health, Miss Dean, I thank you. I will—er—do my best. A lovely morning, Mrs Dean. Your humble servant. Miss Cora, yours. Good-morning.”
“A nasty old humbug; but he’ll have the invitations sent,” said Mrs Dean, a big, well-developed, well-preserved woman of fifty, with bright dark eyes that glistened and shone like pebbles polished by the constant attrition of the blinking lids.
“I wish you would not be so horridly coarse, mother; and if you don’t drop that ‘Betsy’ we shall quarrel,” said the younger lady, who bore a sufficient likeness to the elder for anyone to have stamped them mother and daughter, though the latter was wanting in her parent’s hardness of outline, being a magnificent specimen of womanly beauty. Dark and thoroughly classic of feature, large-eyed, full-lipped, perhaps rather too highly coloured, but this was carried off by the luxuriant black hair, worn in large ringlets flowing down either side of the rounded cheeks they half concealed, by her well-arched black brows and long dark lashes, which shaded her great swimming eyes. Her figure was perfect, and she was in full possession of the ripest womanly beauty, as she walked slowly and with haughty carriage along the cliff, beside the elder dame.
Both ladies were dressed in the very height of the fashion, with enormous wide-spreading open bonnets, heavy with ostrich plumes, tightly-fitting dresses, with broad waistbands well up under the arms, loose scarves, long gloves and reticules ornamented with huge bows of the stiffest silk, like Brobdingnagian butterflies.
“Horrid, coarse indeed! I suppose I mustn’t open my mouth next,” said the elder lady.
“It would be just as well not,” said the younger, “when we are out.”
“Then I shall open it as wide as I like, ma’am, and when I like, so now then, Betsy.”
“As you please; only if you do, I shall go home, and I shall not go to Assembly or ball with you. It was your wish that I should be Cora.”