"Oh, he is good-looking."
"Hanged if he is. Anyhow he's not a half nor a quarter as good-looking as Valentine Purcell. And what's more, though he is my nephew, he is not so much of a gentleman as poor Val is."
Lady Butts, however, stood to her guns.
"What girl in her senses would marry that creature?"
"Creature? Humph! Val isn't over sensible, and he has no backing,—but in his own way he's quite a nice fellow, and has a wonderful appearance when he's dressed. I don't want to see any one look better than Val Purcell turned out for a meet."
"He's just a big boy, and no one thinks of him as anything else."
"One person does—or at any rate, pretends she does. You may take your oath old granny yonder has an eye on your pretty widow; and the Purcells are too close to the Bolderos not to have a dozen opportunities of meeting, for one that you and your precious George have. I wouldn't mind laying odds upon the rival candidate."
Of this conversation we may be sure no echo ever reached other ears, and indeed Lady Butts soon forgot its tenor herself, in her exuberation over George's report of his next step. He returned from the Abbey treading on air. Even the general had been civil—though it transpired at the last moment that the young man had been mistaken for his eldest brother—"but he couldn't go back on me then," chuckled the narrator, "though I'm bound to say he looked a bit blank. He doesn't yet know there are eight of us, and Heaven forfend his looking us up in Debrett!"
"Did you get any invitation?"
"Rather. To luncheon to-morrow. Beastly things, luncheons,—but I couldn't cadge for anything else. What I did was to say I should be walking past, and ask if I could do anything for anybody in the town?"