“Excuse me!” the companion said with a slight cough; “Mrs. de Tracy’s chair! Do you mind taking another?” There was something disagreeable in her voice, and in Mrs. de Tracy’s deliberate scrutiny something so nearly insulting that a childish impulse to cry then and there suddenly 27 seized upon Robinette. This was her mother’s home––and no kiss had welcomed her to it, no kind word! There were perfunctory questions about her journey, references to the coldness and lateness of the spring, enquiries after the health of Maria Spalding (whose mother was a Gallup), but no claiming of kinship, no naming of her mother’s name nor of her native country! Robinette’s ardent spirit had felt sorrow, but it had never met rebuff nor known injustice, and the sudden stir of revolt at her heart was painful with an almost physical pain.
After a long drawn hour of this social torture, Mrs. de Tracy rang, and a hard-featured elderly maid appeared.
“Show Mrs. Loring to her room, Benson,” said the mistress of the house, “and help her to unpack.”
Robinette followed her conductor upstairs with a sinking heart. Oh! but the chill of this English spring was in her bones, and the coldness of a reception so frigid that her 28 passionate young spirit almost rebelled on the spot, prompting wild ideas and impulsive impossibilities; even a flight to her mother’s old nurse––to Lizzie Prettyman, so often lovingly described, with her little thatched cottage beyond the river! Surely she would find the welcome there that was lacking here, and the touch of human kindness that one craved in a foreign land. But no! Robinette called to her aid her strong American common sense and the “grit” that her countrymen admire. Was she to confess herself routed in the very first onset––the very first attempt in storming the ancestral stronghold? With a characteristically quick return of hope, the Admiral’s niece exclaimed, “Certainly not!”
IV
A CHILLY RECEPTION
Mrs. Benson approached the wardrobe trunk with the air of a person who has taken an immediate and violent dislike to an object.
“We have all looked at your box, ma’am, but I am sorry to say we are not sure that it is set up properly. It is very different from any we have ever seen at the Manor, and the men had some difficulty in getting it up to the room. I fancy it is upside down, is it not? No? We rather thought it was. I would call the boot-and-knife boy to unlock it, but he jammed his hand in attempting to force the catches, and I thought you would be kind enough to instruct me how to open it, perhaps?”