He pressed my hand and left the room just as Godfrey entered the door in another direction, singing softly when he saw me:
“She sat by the door one cold afternoon,
To hear the wind blow and look at the moon;
So pensive was Edith, my dear, darling Edith.”
He did not get any farther, for something in his light badinage jarred upon my feelings just then, and assuming a severe dignity, I said:
“You mistake the name. I am not Edith. I am Miss Lyle.”
He looked surprised an instant, and then, with a comical smile and a shaking down of his pants, he said:
“I beg your pardon, Miss Lyle. I meant Kathleen O’Moore, of course, but seeing you at the moment I made a mistake in the name, and no wonder, dazed as I am with a letter just received from Alice, who hopes I shall return from my foreign travel greatly improved in mind, and taste, and manners, as if the latter could be improved. She sent her picture too. Would you like to see it?”
He passed me the carte-de-visite, and I saw the likeness of a girl who he said was only sixteen, but whom I should have taken for twenty, at least, judging from the dress and the expression of the face, which I did not like. It was too supercilious, if not insolent, to suit me, while the turned-up nose added to the look. And still there was a style about her which marked her as what is called a “high-bred city girl,” and I have no doubt she will eventually become a belle, with her immense fortune and proud, arrogant demeanor.
“What do you think of it?” Godfrey asked; and feeling sure that with regard to her his feelings could not be wounded, I answered: