"Blake had a handsome daughter; and when we had a ball for the Prince, didn't he buy her a fine dress, and take her to it! She really looked very handsome."
"I hope the Prince danced with her," laughed Sophia. Her good spirits were rising, in spite of herself, under the influence of the liveliness with which Miss Bennett's mind had darted, birdlike, into its own element.
"Yes, he did. Wasn't it good-natured of him! I believe his aide-de-camp told him who she was; but he was so gracious; he said she should not go away mortified. I never spoke to her myself; but I've no doubt she was unable to open her mouth without betraying her origin; but perhaps on that occasion she had the grace to keep silent, and she danced fairly well."
"Was her head turned by the honour?" asked Sophia, led by the other's tone to expect a sequel to the tale.
"Poor girl! The end was sadder than that. She caught a violent cold, from wearing a dress cut low when she wasn't accustomed to it, and she died in a week. When we heard of it I was glad that he had danced with her; but some were cruel enough to say that it served Blake right for his presumption. He was so broken-hearted he left the place. The dress she wore that night was a green silk, and he had her buried in it; and some one told the Prince, and he sent some flowers. Wasn't it sweet of him! They were buried with her too. It was quite romantic."
"More romantic to have such a swan-like death than to live on as a butcher's daughter," said Sophia, and sarcasm was only a small ingredient in the speech.
"We were quite grieved about it," said Miss Bennett, sincerely.
Sophia also felt sorry, but it was not her way to say so. She was more interested in remarking upon the singular method of getting butcher's meat then in vogue at Chellaston. A Frenchman, a butcher in a small way, drove from door to door with his stock, cutting and weighing his joints in an open box-sleigh. To see the frozen meat thus manipulated in the midst of the snow had struck Sophia as one of the most novel features of their present way of life. Miss Bennett, however, could hardly be expected to feel its picturesqueness. Her parents did not fancy this vendor's meat, and at present they usually killed their own. Her father, she said, had grown quite dexterous in the art.
"Really!" cried Sophia. This was an item of real interest, for it suggested to her for the first time the idea that a gentleman could slaughter an ox. She was not shocked; it was simply a new idea, which she would have liked to enlarge on; but good-breeding forbade, for Miss Bennett preferred to chat about the visit of the Prince, and she continued to do so in a manner so lively that Sophia found it no dull hearing.
"And, do you know," she cried, "what Bertha Nash did? The Nashes, you know, are of quite a common family, although, as Dr. Nash is everybody's doctor, of course we are all on good terms with them. Well, Bertha asked the Prince how his mother was!" She stopped.