The speaker was Neil McPherson, the boy who on the Fourth of July had been thrashed by Grey Jerrold for his sneer at the American flag, find his comments on American ladies. He was a year older than Grey, with a dark, handsome face, a pleasant smile, and winsome ways when he chose to be agreeable. As a rule, he was very good-natured, and his manners were perfect for a boy of fifteen; but there was in all he did or said an air of superiority, as if he felt himself quite above the majority of his companions, which, indeed, was the fact. Trained by his mother from infancy to consider the Trevellian blood the best in England outside the pale of royalty, and the McPherson blood the best outside the peerage, it was not strange that his good qualities—and he had many—should be warped, and dwarfed, and overshadowed by an indomitable pride and supreme selfishness, which would prompt him at any time to sacrifice his best friend in behalf of his own interest. And yet Neil was generally a favorite, for he was frank, and obliging, and good-humored, and very gentlemanly in his manner, and quick to render the little attentions so gratifying to the ladies, by whom he was held in high esteem as a pattern boy. He was the idol of his mother, who saw no fault in him whatever, and who had commenced already to plan for him a brilliant marriage, or at least a marriage of money, for her own income was not large, and that of her husband smaller still.
Blanche Trevellian, whom Neil had designated as tow-haired, and white-browed, was her grand-niece, and Neil's second cousin, and as heiress to ten thousand a year, she might develop into a desirable parti, notwithstanding her ordinary appearance now. And so, when the girl became an orphan, Lady Jane offered to take charge of her, and took her into the family as the daughter of the house, though she never encouraged Neil to think of her as a sister. She was his cousin Blanche, and entitled to a great deal of forbearance and respect, because of her money, and because her mother had been the granddaughter of a duke. Neil called her cousin Blanche, and quarreled with and teased her, and made fun of her white eyebrows, and said her feet were too big, and her ankles too small, and that on standing she always bent her knees to make herself look short; for she was very tall and angular, and awkward every way.
"Wait till my cousin Bessie grows up; there's a beauty for you," he had said to his mother on his return from Stoneleigh, where he had spent a few days the winter previous, and greatly to the annoyance of his mother, he talked constantly of the lovely child who had made so strong an impression upon him.
Lady Jane had heard much of Daisy's exploits, and as the stories concerning her were greatly exaggerated, she looked upon her, if not actually an abandoned woman, as one whose good name was hopelessly tarnished, and she never wished to see either her face or that of her child. Nor did she dream how near the enemy was to her; only just across the hall, in the room which she fully believed to be occupied by her friend, old Lady Oakley, from Grosvenor Square. When her husband and Neil went out, as they did soon after the latter had expressed himself with regard to Blanche and been sharply reproved, they left the door ajar, and she could hear the sound of footsteps in the room opposite, where Lady Oakley was supposed to be making her toilet, just as Lady Jane was making hers.
"I believe I will go and see her," she said to herself, when her dressing was completed and she found she had a good fifteen minutes before the dinner hour, and stepping across the hall she knocked at Daisy's door.
Daisy's first impulse was to call out, "Entrez!" as she did on the Continent; her second, to open the door herself, which she did, disclosing to the view of her astonished visitor, not a fat, red-faced dowager of seventy, but a wonderful vision of girlish loveliness, clad in simple muslin, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes which met hers so fearlessly.
"I beg your pardon, miss," Lady Jane began, stammeringly: "I thought this was Lady Oakley's room. She is my friend. I hope you will excuse me," she continued, as she detected the smothered mirth in Daisy's eyes.
"There is nothing to excuse," Daisy began, in perfectly well-bred tones, "the mistake was natural. Lady Oakley did occupy this room, I believe, but she is now in the north wing, as Mrs. Smithers kindly gave this room to me so that I might be near you; that is, if, as I suppose, you are Lady Jane McPherson?" and she looked steadily at her visitor, who with a slight bridling of her long neck, bowed in the affirmative, never doubting that the young person before her was fully her equal, notwithstanding the plainness of her dress, every detail of which she took in at a glance and mentally pronounced perfect.
"Some poor earl's daughter whom Mrs. Smithers has found. She has a peculiar talent for making good acquaintances," she thought, just as Daisy offered her hand, which she involuntarily took, but dropped as if it had been a viper when the latter said:
"Then you are my aunt, or rather my husband's aunt, for I am Mrs. Archibald McPherson, and I am so glad to meet you."