Replacing the three daughters of the minister of Dundargue, who had been afflicting the company with much boarding-school Mozart and Chopin, who would have deemed anything national vulgar, to say the least of it, compared with some lachrymose drawing-room ballad, and who in a ditty of great length and mystery, which we quote at second hand, had informed their hearers—
'Mermaids we be,
Under the blue sea'—
replacing them, we say, Ruby Logan sang to Allan in a rich mezzo-soprano voice, and with a suppressed emotion, born perhaps of a coquettish desire to dazzle and please him, as a handsome young fellow of good position, all of which proved a fresh annoyance to my Lady Aberfeldie, who deemed music at times 'a convenient noise for drowning conversation, and under whose shelter the old people talk scandal and the young people make love,' and who knew that Miss Logan, like Olive, had that wonderful charm, which is, perhaps, one of the greatest any girl can possess, a lovely and ever-changing expression; and even Allan, as he gazed down into the depths of her dark-blue eyes (while she sang at him), and anon glanced furtively at Olive, thought to himself,
'How the dickens will our little game of cross-purposes end?'
Lady Aberfeldie was just then indulging in the same surmise, as, full of watchfulness, she occupied an ottoman in the centre of the inner drawing-room, cresting up her white throat and well-shaped head; looking in her stately beauty like the heroine of some grand old Scottish romance of the days of Montrose or Prince Charles, for there was something of a past age in her style and bearing, though attired in the latest fashion by a modiste of Princes Street.
In her matronhood, Lady Aberfeldie had still that subdued charm which was not now the beauty of youth, yet stood very much in place of it; but, with all her softness of manner, she was a proud and determined woman, capable of doing much to accomplish a purpose of her own, and the marriage of Eveline to Sir Paget Puddicombe was certainly her purpose at present.
Thinking that it was high time to make some change in the general grouping, the moment Miss Logan's musical performance was done she summoned Allan to her side by a wave of her fan.
'So glad I am that your father, who so often mistakes, invited dear Sir Paget here,' she said, in low voice.
'He is rather a good sort,' replied Allan, in his off-hand way; 'capital cellar and preserves, I have heard.'
'So rich, and not very old; he always admired Eveline, and she certainly cares for no one else—thus I have great hopes for her, Allan,' she added, confidently; but Allan sighed; he knew better, and recalled the tears of his gentle sister on the terrace, and her half murmured admissions of deep interest in that winsome young brother-officer, whom he loved so well; and, as he remained silent, his mother spoke again.