Bessie fixed her eyes on her sister, and Mrs. Westgate could have believed there were tears in them. “Do they talk that way here?”
“You’ll see. I shall let you alone.”
“Don’t let me alone,” said Bessie Alden. “Take me away.”
“No; I want to see what you make of it,” her sister continued.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ll understand after Lord Lambeth has come,” said Mrs. Westgate with a persistence of private amusement.
The two ladies had arranged that on this afternoon Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde Park, where Bessie expected it would prove a rich passage to have sat on a little green chair under the great trees and beside Rotten Row. The want of a suitable escort had hitherto hampered this adventure; but no escort, now, for such an expedition, could have been more suitable than their devoted young countryman, whose mission in life, it might almost be said, was to find chairs for ladies and who appeared on the stroke of half-past five adorned with every superficial grace that could qualify him for the scene.
“I’ve written to Lord Lambeth, my dear,” Mrs. Westgate mentioned on coming into the room where Bessie, drawing on long grey gloves, had given their visitor the impression that she was particularly attuned. Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley exclaimed that his lordship was in town; he had seen his name in the Morning Post. “Do you read the Morning Post?” Mrs. Westgate thereupon asked.
“Oh yes; it’s great fun.” Mr. Woodley almost spoke as if the pleasure were attended with physical risk.
“I want so to see it,” said Bessie, “there’s so much about it in Thackeray.”