Very few ever had the pleasure of seeing Captain Cavendish disconcerted. He only stared icily at his brother-officer, and offered his arm to Miss McGregor to lead her to her carriage, which was in waiting, while Mr. Oaks did the same duty for Laura. Mr. Blake saw her led off under his very nose, with sublimest unconcern, and lounged along the wharf, watching the deck-hands getting out freight, with far more interest than he could ever have felt in Laura's pretty tittle-tattle. If that lady felt disappointed, she knew the proprieties a great deal too well to betray it, and held a laughing flirtation all the way up the wharf with Mr. Tom Oaks.
"You will be sure to find out what the heiress is like," she said, bounding into the carriage. "I shall never know a moment's peace until I ascertain."
"I will go to Darcy's with Blake," answered Tom; "that's all I can do. If she shows it is all right; if she don't, a fellow can't very well send word to her to come and exhibit herself. Adieu, mesdemoiselles!"
The two gentlemen tipped their chapeaux gallantly as the carriage rattled off up the hilly streets of Speckport; for every street in Speckport is decidedly "the rocky road to Dublin." Mr. Oaks hunted up Mr. Blake, and led him off from the fascinating spot, where the men were noisily getting out barrels, and bales and boxes.
"I'll call round for you, Blake," he said; "and we'll drop into Darcy's, promiscuous, as it were, before going to Laura's. I want to see the heiress myself, as much as the girls do."
Mr. Blake was of much too easy a nature to refuse any common request; and when, about seven o'clock, Mr. Oaks, magnificently got up in full evening costume, partly concealed by a loose and stylish overcoat, called at Great St. Peter's Street, he found the master of No. 16 putting the finishing touches to a characteristically loose and careless toilet.
The two young men sallied forth into the brightly starlit March night, lighting their cigars as they went, and conjecturing what Miss Henderson might be like. At least Mr. Oaks was, Mr. Blake being constitutionally indifferent on the subject.
"What's the odds?" said Val; "let her be as pretty as Venus, or as ugly as a blooming Hottentot, it makes no difference to you or I, does it?"
"Perhaps not to you, you dry old Diogenes," said Tom; "but to me it's of the utmost consequence, as I mean to marry her, should she turn out to be handsome."
Mr. Blake stared, for Mr. Oaks had delivered himself of this speech with profoundest gravity; but as they were at the lawyer's door, there was no time for friendly remonstrance on such precipitate rashness. Val rang, and was shown by the young lady who answered the bell, and did general housework for Mrs. Darcy, into the parlor. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were there, and so was the new heiress, to whom they were presented in form. She still wore her black silk dress, and lay back in a cushioned rocker, looking at the bright coal-fire, and talking very little. It was very easy to look at her; had she been a tall statue, draped in black, it could scarcely have been easier; and the two gentlemen took a mental photograph of her, for Miss Blair's benefit and their own, before they had been two minutes in the room.