“Er—oh, beg pardon, did you speak?” exclaimed the young man, starting out of a revery.
Joy! he hadn’t heard her. “No—that is—it isn’t any matter,” said Grace hastily. “I was going to say I think Bella is perfectly splendid. We all do at school.”
“You attend Miss Willoughby’s boarding-school, I believe,” said the black-eyed young man, bending on her a sharper gaze than ever. “It’s a delightful school I’m told. Isn’t that a fact?”
Grace was saved from replying by his next remark, which he presented without any pause to speak of. “I’ve two cousins, Jenny and Francina Day, there. I’m going over to call on them this evening after dinner.”
Oh, horrors! Why hadn’t Bella told her of this before she had taken upon herself such a scrape! Well, there was no help for it now; there was no other way, if she would see Mrs. King, and be part and parcel of Mrs. King’s great reception. She tried to recover herself enough to smile; but she felt, as she afterward told Bella, as if her face wobbled all over.
“I’m glad to meet somebody who will give me a sort of a welcome there. Fact is, I don’t know my cousins by sight. Never saw but one of them, and she was a kid of three years old. Are they nice girls?”
“Perfectly splendid,” said Grace recklessly, glad to think she had made up a long, outstanding fight between Jenny and herself just the day before, and stifling the qualms of conscience when she reflected on Francina’s heavy dulness. “Oh, I’m so glad they’re your cousins,” she said, smiling radiantly.
The sharp-eyed young man showed two rows of even white teeth as he also smiled expansively.
“Miss Willoughby is extremely gracious to allow you to go to a swell reception,” he said slowly. “If I’d supposed it would be of any use, I’d have begged my cousins off. I presume it’s too late for me to run around now and get them.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” cried Grace, starting forward, and beating one little boot in terror on the carpet. “Miss Willoughby doesn’t like short notice about anything; and—and—it’s an awful long way there—and—here comes Bella.” To her great relief in came that young lady, resplendent in a new blue hat quite perky, with a grown-up air that was matched by Bella’s manners as she drew on a white kid glove.