"Are we to be favored with your company, Miss Ross?" inquired Mr. Copeland.
"No, I do not keep late hours until my health is confirmed."
"What a pity!" exclaimed Alice. "Do go! I shall feel so strange, so lonely!"
"Mr. Copeland will prevent that; and I make over to you my interest in my friend, Mr. Dana, for one evening."
"Are you in the market for the first bidder?" said Miss Arnold, with pretty archness, to the former gentleman.
"If Miss Ross pleases. I intended to ask permission to remain in my present quarters until the hour at which we ultra-fashionables go to routs; but if she banishes me sooner, I am proud to do her bidding, hard as it is."
The lamps were lighted; and Mrs. Read conferred the further illumination of her presence.
"Where's your liege-lord, my lady?" asked her brother; and she replied, as she did, whenever she could, to inquiries concerning him—"Indeed, I do not know," and sank indolently upon a divan. The large, slumberous eyes did not brighten at his step in the hall; and when she drew her dress aside to make room for him, it was with more thought for the costly fabric, than desire to have him near. Josephine came in, as the bell sounded for supper. It was a cheerful meal, in spite of her haughty silence, and Ida's inward conflicts. Alice Murray's even spirits had an equalising effect upon the varied temperaments around her; Miss Arnold was witty and charming. Ida could not deny her eyes the luxury of watching her animated countenance. They feasted upon its beauty, until every thought was merged in admiration; and this, while, Mr. Copeland's sallies were exclusively for herself. Mrs. Read aroused from her proud languor, and manifested a keen relish for the ridiculous, and satirical powers, not inferior to her brother's. There was a veiled acrimony in their manner to each other, which impressed Ida with the belief of some unsettled feud, never lost sight of by either; and which she could not reconcile with Alice's assertion, that he was Mrs. Read's best-beloved brother. Their personal resemblance was marked; but gay and caustic as he was, there were scintillations of feeling in his dark eyes, which had burnt out, or were smothered in hers. "And how else could it be?" she said to herself, as she looked at her dignified guardian, transformed for the nonce, into the uxorious husband; and marvelled, for the thousandth time—"What made her marry him?"
They were incredulous when Mr. Read said it was time to dress for Mrs. Talbot's.
"You go with us, Richard?" said his sister.