'Too awfully so; but then, most of the young ladies he knows are not disinclined to a little flirtation, and can take very good care of themselves.'
As Miss Galloway spoke, there was the slightest derisive erection of her delicate eyebrows, and the pointed intonation of mockery in her well-bred voice. All this was meant for Ellinor's edification, and she did not entirely forget it; but to Mary there seemed something discordant, flippant, and strange in thus discussing a visitor's ways or character.
'We all travelled together,' said Lady Dunkeld, 'and came straight from London to Perth. As for tarrying in Edinburgh, that was not to be thought of.'
'Of course not,' added Blanche, shrugging her shoulders. 'I don't think even Captain Colville with all his patriotism could stand the dulness, the narrow ideas, and the bad style of people there. All provincial towns are so unbearable after London.'
Mary Wellwood resented, but silently, their ungracious remarks. Her memories of Edinburgh were experiences never to be forgotten; and she thought of the lovely valley gardens, the veritable river of greenery under the vast Castle Rock, the glorious white terraces of the New Town, the dark and history-haunted masses of the Old—the Regalia, Mons Meg, and all the rest of it, as she had seen them in the happiest days of her girlhood; and she felt pleased when Lady Dunkeld said:
'Captain Colville had not been there for years; and he was disposed to stay a day or two behind us.'
'Surely not for the sake of any beauty he saw,' exclaimed Blanche, laughing; 'but in many ways he is very different from Sir Redmond.'
He was indeed, we are glad to say; but in what particular manner the Hon. Blanche referred to, the sisters were not fated to know, as Lady Dunkeld now rose, the carriage was summoned, and saying with one of her sweet but stereotyped smiles, 'we shall expect to see you at our little affair, gave them the tips of her gloved fingers and swept away.
Mary and Ellinor looked at each other with a little expression of surprise and bewilderment in their faces, and both felt that Blanche Galloway had, to say the least of it, disappointed them by her general style.
Their emotions varied—one moment they felt flattered and pleased by the recognition of their own position and that once held by their parents in society which the sudden visit from the ladies of the great house implied.