"I must positively try this on, my good Thorpe; it is just my style. Has any one else seen it?"
"Nobody, my lady. I have but this morning unpacked it, and I brought it from France only a few days ago. If your ladyship will step into the parlor."
Amabel and I were sitting in the parlor—Amabel reading and I busy with some pretence of needlework. We usually retired on such occasions, but I had a mind to see a little more of this very fine lady, and I am ashamed to say I purposely upset my work-basket, and set the spools rolling all about the floor. The two grey kittens instantly pounced upon them, and, while I was rescuing my materials, Lady Throckmorton entered the room. She stood as if transfixed for a moment.
"Whom have we here? A ghost from the other world!" she exclaimed. "Mrs. Thorpe, where have you found this living image of poor little Lady Leighton?"
"This is the daughter of Sir Julius Leighton, my lady," answered Mrs. Thorpe, presenting us; "and this is her cousin and foster-sister. I brought the young gentlewomen from France but a few days since, and they are staying here under my care till the smallpox shall be over at Highbeck Hall."
"Yes, I heard Mrs. Chloe was in a way to have her youthful beauty spoiled," said Captain Lovelace.
"For shame! You spiteful creature!" said the lady, giving him a blow with her closed fan. "Mrs. Chloe is my particular friend. And so are Lady Leighton's daughter, as well as her living image," she added, turning to Amabel, and speaking in quite a different tone. "I knew your mother well, my child. You and my Alice were born on the same day, but she was but a frail creature, fading in her earliest bloom."
Again a softer look came into her eyes. I never saw such eyes as hers. They were of a sapphire-blue, very bright and clear, with a sort of hardness and sharpness in them, and flashing with a fierce and baleful luster when she was offended. She was indeed a most curious mixture of good and evil, as I came to know afterward, but the evil predominated, being let to have its way unchecked, and she perished miserably at last, poor thing!
"Mrs. Thorpe never made a more beautiful or valuable importation, I am sure," said Captain Lovelace, bowing to us both, though he had not been included in—indeed, had been rather pointedly left out of—the presentation.
Lady Throckmorton's eyes flashed for a moment.