The day after the letter was sent, the Browne party started for Ridgeville, reaching the Allington station about three in the afternoon of a lovely July day.
The news of their coming had preceded them, and the Ridge House, which was a large, imposing mansion, had for days been the scene of much bustle and excitement, for it was known that an Irish lord was to accompany the family, and an English lady, who, if not titled, was connected with some of the best families in England.
There was a great deal of talk and gossip among the neighbors, who had known the Rossiter-Brownes with out an "e" or a hyphen, when he was simply Ike and she was Angeline, Miss Lucy Grey's hired girl. But they were rich people now; they owned the finest house in Ridgeville, and every room was covered with what Mrs. Browne called a Mocha carpet, and they kept negroes instead of white servants, and the barn was full of boxes of all sizes, which had arrived, from time to time, bearing foreign marks upon them, thus impressing the lower class with a species of awe as they thought how far they had come, and how much they had probably cost.
Then, the family had traveled and consorted with nobility, and seen the Queen and the Pope, and in consequence of all this there was quite a crowd of people at the station when the New York express stopped then and deposited upon the platform twelve trunks, three hat boxes, an English terrier, a Dongola cat, with innumeral satchels and port-manteaus, and seven people—Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, Augusta Browne, Allen Browne, Daisy McPherson, a French maid, and Lord Hardy. He, plainly dressed in a gray suit, which did not fit him at all, but with a decidedly aristocratic look upon his face as he glanced curiously at the crowd gathering around the Brownes, and greeting them with noisy demonstrations: Daisy, in deep black, with her vail thrown back from her lovely lace and a gleam of ridicule and contempt in her blue eyes as they flashed upon Lord Hardy as if for sympathy; the French maid, in white apron and cap, tired, homesick and bewildered with Mrs. Browne's repeated calls to know if she was sure she had all the bags, and shawls, and fans, and umbrellas, and the shrill voice of a little boy who shouted to her as the train moved off, "I say, hain't you left your bunnet in the cars; 'tain't on your head;" Allen, stunning in his long, light overcoat, tight pants, pointed shoes, cane, and eye-glasses, which he found very necessary as he pointed out his luggage, and in reply to the baggage-master's hearty "How are you, my boy?" drawled out, "Quite well—thanks—but awful tired, you know;" Augusta, in a Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a narrow lane.
No wonder the plain people of Ridgeville, to whom poke bonnets, and jersey jackets, and long gloves, and pointed toes, were then new, were startled, and a little abashed at so much foreign style, especially as it was accompanied by nobility in the person of Lord Hardy. At him the people stared curiously, deciding that he was not much to look at if he was a lord, and wondering if he was after Augusta.
"Her mother will bust, if he is. She has about as much as she can do to keep herself together now. I wonder if she has forgot that she was once a hired girl, and worked like the rest of us?" was whispered by some of the envious ones.
But this was before they had received Mrs. Browne's greeting, which was just as cordial as of old, and her voice was just as loud and hearty. She didn't mean to be stuck up because she'd been abroad; she was a democrat to her back-bone, she had frequently asserted, and she carried out her principles, and shook hands with everybody, and kissed a great many, and thanked them for coming to meet her; and then, with her husband, Augusta, and Lord Hardy, entered her handsome carriage and was driven toward home.
The French maid went in the omnibus, while Allen drove Daisy himself in the pony phaeton, not a little proud of the honor, and the attention he was attracting as he took his seat beside the beautiful woman, whose face had never looked fairer or sweeter than it did under the widow's bonnet.
"What a lovely pony! Is he gentle? and do you think I might venture to drive him?" Daisy asked, with a pretty affectation of girlishness, as they left the station; and Allen instantly put the reins in her hands, and leaning languidly back, watched her admiringly, with a strange thrill of something undefinable in his heart.
"Do we pass Miss McPherson's house?" Daisy asked and he replied: