Priscilla, notwithstanding her fine and impressive eyes, her honest manner, and her earnest wish to make herself pleasant, looked undoubtedly gauche in the old-fashioned garments which were mostly made for her by poor Susan Martin. Lady Lushington found that though people remarked on Priscilla when she walked with the others in the fashionable part of the town or sat with them when they listened to the band or took her place in the salle-à-manger by their sides, yet those glances were by no means ones of admiration. The girl looked oppressed by a certain care, and dowdy beyond all words. Lady Lushington liked her, and yet she did not like her. She felt, however, bound to keep to her compact—to make the best of poor Priscilla. Accordingly, she told her friends that Priscilla Weir was a genius, and a little quaint with regard to her clothes, and that, in consequence, she had to put up with her peculiar dress.
“But she is such an honest good creature,” said Lady Lushington in conclusion, “that I am quite glad to have her as a companion for Mabel.”
Now the people to whom Lady Lushington gave this confidence were by no means interested in Priscilla’s predilection for quaint clothes. They pronounced her an oddity, and left her to the fate of all oddities—namely, to herself. Annie, on the contrary, who made the best of everything, and who looked quite ravishingly pretty in the smart frocks which Parker, by Lady Lushington’s desire, supplied her with, came in for that measure of praise which was denied to poor Priscie. Annie looked very modest, too, and had such charming, unaffected, ingenuous blue eyes, the blue eyes almost of a baby.
Lady Lushington found her first prejudices melting out of sight as she watched Annie’s grace and noticed her apparent unselfishness.
It was Annie’s cue to be unselfish during these days, and Lady Lushington began to form really golden opinions with regard to her character. She had been very nice on the journey, taking the most uncomfortable seat and thinking of every one’s comfort except her own. She had been delightful when they reached Interlaken, putting up with a very small and hot bedroom almost in the roof of the hotel. And now she began to make herself useful to Lady Lushington.
This great lady had a vast amount of voluminous correspondence. She liked writing to her friends in her own illegible hand, but she hated writing business letters. Now Annie wrote an exceedingly neat and legible hand, and when she offered herself as Lady Lushington’s amanuensis, making the request in the prettiest voice imaginable, and looking so eagerly desirous to help the good woman, Mabel’s aunt felt her last prejudice against Annie Brooke melting out of sight.
“Really, my dear,” she said, “you are good-natured. It would be a comfort to dictate my letters to you, but I am stupid about business letters. You do not mind if I dictate them very slowly?”
“Oh no,” said Annie, “by no means; and I should so love to write them for you. You do such a great deal for poor little me that if there is any small way in which I can help you I shall be more than glad. Dear Lady Lushington, you don’t know how I feel your kindness.”
“You are very good to say so, Miss Brooke. I have invited you here because you are Mabel’s friend.”
“Sweet Mabel!” murmured Annie; “her very greatest friend. But now, may I help you?”