"Oh, hang the vail!" cried Captain Cavendish; "they ought to be indicted as public nuisances. The face belonging to such a figure should be pretty!"
"How tall she is!" exclaimed Miss McGregor, who was rather dumpy than otherwise. "She is a perfect giantess!"
"Five feet six, I should say, was mademoiselle's height," remarked Val, with mathematical precision. "I like tall women. How stately she walks!"
"I suppose she'll be putting on airs now," remarked Miss McGregor, with true feminine dislike to hear another woman praised; "and forget she ever had to work for her living in New York. Or perhaps she'll go back there and take her fortune with her."
"You wouldn't be sorry, Jeannette, would you?" said Laura. "She's a terrible rival, I know, with her thirty thousand pounds, and her stately stature. Val, I wish you would find out what she is like before you come to our house this evening. You can do anything you please, and I am dying to know."
"All right," said Val; "shall I drop into Darcy's, and ask Miss Henderson to stand up for inspection, in order that I may report to Miss Blair?"
"Oh, nonsense! you can go into Mr. Darcy's if you like, and see her, without making a goose of yourself."
"And I'll go with him, Miss Laura," said Mr. Tom Oaks, sauntering up. "Blake has no more eye for beauty than a cow, or he would not have lived in Speckport all these years, and be a single man to-day. We'll both drop in to Darcy's on our way to you, Miss Blair, with a full, true, and particular account of Miss Henderson's charms."
"Oh, her charms are beyond dispute, already," said Captain Cavendish; "she has thirty thousand, to our certain knowledge."
"And of all charms," drawled Lieutenant the Honorable Blank, "we know that golden ones are the most to your taste, Cavendish. You'd better be careful and not put your foot in it with this heiress, as they tell me you did with the last."