Opposite sat Miss Arthur, her sallowness carefully enameled over, her head adorned with an astonishing array of false braids and curls and frizzes, jetty in hue to match her eyes, which, so Cora informed Lucian in private, were "awfully beady."
The lady was perusing a paper, which she suddenly threw down, and said languidly, while she stirred her chocolate carefully. "Should not this be the day on which my new maid arrives?"
Miss Arthur, from perusing many novels of the Sir Walter Scott school, had acquired a very stately manner of speech, and, so she flattered herself, a very effective one.
"I don't know why Miss Arthur can want a maid; her toilets are always perfection," remarked Mr. Davlin to the general assembly.
Whereupon, Miss Arthur blushed, giggled, and disclaimed; Mrs. Arthur disappeared behind a newspaper; and Mr. Arthur emerged from the fog of thought that had enveloped him, to say brusquely:
"Miss Arthur want a maid? what's all this? A French maid in a country house—faugh!"
Miss Arthur gazed across at her brother, and said, loftily, and somewhat unmeaningly:
"It is what I have chosen to do, John." Then to Mr. Davlin, sweetly: "It is so hard to dispense with a maid when you have been accustomed to one."
"I suppose so."
"And this one comes so well recommended, you know, by Mrs. Overman and Mrs. Grosvenor. You have heard of these ladies in society, no doubt, Mr. Davlin?"