"Yes, sir; came about a quarter of an hour ago; he has just gone up to dress."
Blanche was sitting in front of her dressing-table, with her maid putting the finishing-touches to her toilette, when a slight tap at the door was followed by the entrance of her mother.
"That will do, Gimp," said Lady Mary. "I will arrange those flowers in Miss Blanche's hair myself;" and, obedient to the intimation, the lady's-maid left the room. "I have just looked in to speak to you, Blanche, about this ball. If the subject is revived at dinner this evening, you won't want to go to it: you understand?"
"Of course, mamma, I will say so if you wish it; but I should like to go, all the same."
"Oh, nonsense! An Easter ball at Commonstone would be a shocking, vulgar, not to say rowdy, affair. Besides, surely you have had plenty of dancing in London, to say nothing of heaps more in perspective."
"Dancing!" replied the girl, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't call a London ball dancing. One jigs round and round in a place about ten feet square, but one never gets a really good spin. We have been at Commonstone balls before. What makes you think this one would be more uproarious than usual?"
"We have never been to an Easter ball, my dear," replied Lady Mary, adjusting a piece of fern in her daughter's tresses. "We came down here for quiet, and if you don't require a rest, I do. You must think of your poor chaperon a little, Blanche."
"Don't say another word, mamma. You are a dear amiable chaperon, and have been awfully good about staying a little late at times. I don't want to drag you over to Commonstone, when your wish is to be left peacefully at home. We won't do the Easter ball, though it is sad to think what a capital room they have for it. But come along, there goes the bell, and I am sure now I look most bewitching."
It was not Lady's Mary's custom to take her daughters into her confidence, in the first instance, with regard to the matrimonial designs she had formed for their benefit. All the preliminary manoeuvres she conducted herself. The idea of young people gravitating together naturally was a theory she would have received with profound derision. She looked upon it that all what she would have termed successful marriages were as much owing to the clever diplomacy of mothers or chaperons as the victory of a horse in a big race is due to the skilful handling of his jockey. During the afternoon she had been meditating over the plan of her Easter campaign, and resolved to adhere to her original determination. Most decidedly she would have nothing to do with Commonstone and its gaieties, nor would she afford greater favour to any revelries at the Rockcliffe camp; and most devoutly did she wish that it was in her power to keep the rector's daughters altogether at arm's length, now that she had seen this new cousinly importation. At arm's length as much as possible the Misses Chipchase should be held, she determined.
"That Miss Sylla," she muttered, "is just the sort of girl men always lose their heads about; clever, too, if I mistake not. Well, I don't mean to see more of her at the Grange than I am positively obliged to; but keep her out altogether I can't. The Chipchase girls have grown up with my own, and been always accustomed to come and go pretty much as they liked. However," thought her ladyship, "the first thing to settle undoubtedly is this ball;" and, as she and her daughter descended to dinner, Lady Mary did fancy that, at all events, she had settled that.