“But at last we got the better of her objections; and though there were a good many pretty women there, and though Miss Crowther, perhaps, pleased most tastes, being a more showy style of beauty, to my thinking there wasn’t one came up to Mrs. Disney.”
“Her partners seemed of the same opinion,” put in the doctor, cheerily. “Why, how often did Lord Lostwithiel dance with you, Mrs. Disney? Oftener than with anybody else, I’ll be bound.”
Mrs. Baynham nodded approvingly.
“I was very proud of my party that evening, I can tell you, Colonel Disney,” she said. “It isn’t often that one has to chaperon three attractive young women. Do you know that my youngest niece, Maria, has had two offers since that night, Isola, and when I last heard from her she was on the brink of an engagement? Ah, well, I hope we shall have another ball next December, now that the neighbourhood has begun to wake up a bit. We have been thinking of getting up a water picnic this summer—just a little excursion to Mevagissey, and a little fishing for those who might care for it.”
“Very pleasant, indeed, of you,” answered the colonel, cheerily. “We will be there.”
“The Crowthers are rather grand in their ideas,” said the doctor, “but Alicia is very keen upon all kind of sport, so I know she’ll want to come, whatever Belinda may say to it.”
Mrs. Baynham made a wry face at the name of the elder sister. It was an involuntary and unconscious contortion; but Belinda had tried to snub Mrs. Baynham, who never could forget that her father was a banker at Truro, and held the fortunes—the mortgages and encumbrances of the landed gentry—in the hollow of his hand.
“You don’t like the elder Miss Crowther?” speculated the colonel.
“Well, if I am to be candid, I must confess that I have a positive aversion to that young lady. The airs she gives herself on the strength of her father’s wool are really insupportable, and since Lord Lostwithiel disappointed her she has been more odious than she was before.”
“What do you mean by Lostwithiel disappointing her? Did he jilt her?”