“Her idea,” Alice said. “Who was she, pray, that she should presume to lecture you?”
“I tell you, there’s no need to be jealous,” Godfrey replied. “Not of her, at least. She is only a child,—not in ‘our set,’—no pretension,—no family,—though I believe she does boast a grandmother and forty pounds a year.”
“Oh, I know,—Gertie Rogers, that yellow-haired girl down at the cottage!” Alice exclaimed, with a tone of irritation in her voice.
“And so you have seen Gertie. Isn’t she a beauty?” Godfrey said.
Before Alice could reply there was the rustle of a dress and the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs. The colonel and Edith were coming down, and they went into the drawing-room, where Godfrey and Alice joined them, the latter scanning the bride curiously, and mentally acknowledging her to be the most elegant woman she had ever seen, both in face, and manner, and dress. How exquisitely beautiful Edith was in the grayish silk, with the pink tinge, which fitted her fine form as only a Paris-made garment can fit. The silk was of the richest texture, while the lace upon it was in itself a fortune, and the bertha was the most exquisite thing of the kind Alice had ever seen.
“How can she be so easy and self-possessed, and she only a hired companion?” Alice thought, as she saw how wholly unembarrassed Edith was, even when Mrs. Rossiter swept into the room in her long trailing dress of black tissue, with her scarlet scarf around her, and a few geranium leaves in her hair.
Miss Rossiter usually wore black when in full dinner dress. She knew it became her better than any other color, especially when relieved with scarlet or white, and she was handsome now as she came in with a half-eager, half-wondering look upon her face.
“Ah, Christine, I am glad to see you and find you looking so well,” Col. Schuyler said, as he went hastily forward to meet her. “Let me present you to my wife. Mrs. Schuyler, this is Miss Rossiter, my sister,—or rather,—yes,—the sister of my wife; that is, I mean,—the late lamented Emily,—yes.”
“That’s what I call a very remarkable introduction,” Godfrey whispered to Alice, who turned away to hide her laughter, while the faintest resemblance of a smile lurked in Edith’s eyes and about the corners of her mouth as she extended her hand to the sister of the lamented Emily!
Otherwise she was perfectly collected, and did not seem to notice that only the tips of two fingers were given her, and that though the thin lips of Miss Rossiter moved, the words they uttered were wholly inaudible. Miss Rossiter had seen at a glance that the lady’s beauty was not exaggerated, but she could not feel altogether cordial toward one whom she considered an intruder, and she purposely threw as much coldness and haughtiness as possible into her manner, hoping thus to impress the stranger with a sense of the vast difference there was between the Rossiters and the Lyles. But Edith did not seem in the least affected by the lady’s hauteur, and inquiring kindly if her head was better, suggested that she sit down, as she must feel rather weak, and set the example by sitting down herself.