So Flossie would--though she did not know it--encourage her cousin to work harder than ever, just by way of showing that she had something more in her than to spend her life in bickering and snarling. Stay! I do Sarah an injustice there--she was moved by another and a better motive, both in trying to keep peace and in trying to get on with her work, for she had always the grateful feeling, "It will please Auntie so," and always a feeling that it was a slight return to her uncle's wife if she bore Flossie's attentions without complaining.
They did not see much of May; all day she was in the drawing-room with her mother, if she was not out on some errand of pleasure. And at night, when the schoolroom tea was over, she used to come down for a minute and show herself, a vision of comeliness--for May was considered a great beauty in the Stubbs' set--in white or roseate airy garments, with hair crimpled and fluffy, feathers and flowers, fans and bangles, pearls and diamonds, and all the other necessaries for a young lady of fashion in her first season.
Some time previously Mr. Stubbs had made his wife a present of an elegant landau and a pair of high-stepping horses. But Flossie, to her disgust, found that her drives were no more frequent than they had been in the days of the one-horse "broom." Then her mother had not unreasonably declared herself unable to bear the stuffiness of a carriage full of people. Now May objected to any one going with them on the score of her dress being crushed and the unpleasantness of "looking like a family ark."
They had become very gay. Scarcely a night passed but they went out to some gay entertainment or other, and many parties were given at home, when the elder of the younger members of the family had the pleasure of participating in them.
Flossie was terribly indignant at being kept at home that May might have more room in the luxurious and roomy carriage.
"Just you wait till I come out, Miss May." She said one day, "and then see if your airs and graces will keep me in the background! The fact is, you're afraid to show off against me; you know as well as I do that, with all your fine dress and your finer airs, you are not half so much noticed as I am! And as for that Sarah----"
"Leave Sarah out of it!" laughed May; "she doesn't want to go."
"I'd soon stop it if she did!" growled Flossie.
It was really very hard, and Flossie thought and said so. But May was inflexible, and long before Flossie was ready to come out May became engaged to be married.
It was a very brilliant marriage indeed, and the entire family were wonderfully elated about it. True, the bridegroom was a good deal older than May, and was pompous to a degree. But then he was enormously rich, and had a great cheap clothes manufactory down the East End somewhere, and could give May bigger diamonds than anybody they knew. He had, too, a house in Palace Gardens and a retinue of silk-stockinged servants, in comparison with whom Mrs. George's footman at Brighton was a mere country clod.