Anna had lost no time in removing the sign from the window, and had even carried out her threat of splitting and burning it up, thinking thus to wipe out a past which she foolishly thought had been a disgrace, because of her mother’s honest labor. The work-room, too, had been dismantled of everything pertaining to the obnoxious dressmaking, and Mrs. Lydia, deprived of her occupation, found the time hanging heavily upon her hands, for she had no taste for housekeeping, and could not at once interest herself in it. Besides, she missed the excitement of the people coming in and going out, and missed the gossip they brought, and almost every hour of her life repented that to gratify her daughter she had been persuaded to retire from business and set up for a lady.
Anna, on the contrary, enjoyed it immensely, and held her head a good deal higher, and frizzed her hair more than ever, and wore her best dresses every day, and spoke slightingly of Margery La Rue as only a dressmaker, and told half a dozen of the neighbors, confidentially, that she thought her cousin Reinette fast and queer, though she supposed it was the French of her, to go on, as she did, with Phil and Mr. Beresford, both of whom were making fools of themselves. For her part she could see nothing attractive in her whatever, except that she was bright, and witty, and small, and tall men, as a rule, liked little women. To Queenie herself, however, she was sweetness itself, and as the latter never heard of her ill-natured remarks, there was a show of friendship between the two girls, and Anna was frequently at Hetherton Place, where the envy of her nature found ample food to feed upon, as she contrasted Reinette’s surroundings with her own.
CHAPTER XX.
ARRIVALS IN MERRIVALE.
For three or four years Merrivale had boasted of a weekly paper, and in the column of “Personals” the citizens read one Thursday morning that the Rossiters were coming home on Friday, and that Mrs. and Miss La Rue, the French ladies who were to succeed Mrs. Ferguson in her business, were also expected on that day. Everybody was glad the Rossiters were coming, for Merrivale was always gayer when they were home, as they were hospitable people, and entertained a great deal of company. Usually they brought guests with them, but this time no one was coming, Phil said, except a cousin of his father’s—an old bachelor, who rejoiced in the highsounding name of Lord Seymour Rossiter, though to do him justice, he usually signed himself Major L. S. Rossiter, as he had once been in the army. He was very rich, Phil said, and rather good-looking, and he laughingly bade Queenie be prepared to surrender at once to his charms. But Queenie cared little for Lord Rossiter or any other lord just then. All her thoughts and interests were centered in the one fact that Margery was coming, and she spent the whole of Friday morning at the cottage, seeing that everything was in readiness, and literally filling it with flowers from her garden and greenhouse.
“I wish her to have a good first impression,” she said to Phil, who was with her as she inspected the rooms for the last time before going home to the early dinner she had ordered that day, so as to be at the station in time.
The train was due at six o’clock, and, a few minutes before the hour, the Rossiter carriage with Phil in it, and the Hetherton carriage with Reinette in it, drew up side by side at the rear of the depot.
Reinette was full of excitement and expectation, and made a most lovely picture in her black dress of some soft, gauzy material, with knots of double-faced scarlet and cream ribbons twisted in with the bows and loops of satin—a scarlet tip on her black hat, and a mass of white illusion wound round it, and fastened beneath her chin.
Phil thought her perfectly charming as she walked restlessly up and down the platform, waiting for the first sound which should herald the approaching train. It came at last—a low whistle in the distance, growing gradually louder and shriller, until the train shot under the bridge, and the great engine puffed and groaned a moment before the station, and then went on its way, leaving two distinct groups of people to be stared at by the lookers-on. One, the Rossiters and a middle-aged man, dressed in the extreme of fashion, with eye glasses on his nose and a little slender cane in his hand, which he twisted nervously, while, with the other members of his party, he looked curiously at the second group farther down the platform—the three French ladies, who spoke their native tongue so volubly, and were so demonstrative and expressive in their gestures and tones. Mrs. La Rue was in black, with a strange expression on her face and in her eyes, as she watched the two young girls.
The moment Margery alighted, Reinette had precipitated herself into her arms, exclaiming: