“Here, papa, take the young lady,” said the duchess, depositing her in the young man’s arms, and shaking out her glittering plumage, slightly discomposed by the frantic exertions of the “young lady” in question. “She is fonder of gentlemen than ladies, I perceive. She wouldn’t be a true female, though, if she wasn’t.”
Miss Erminie, in a paroxysm of delight, immediately buried her “long, aristocratic, white fingers” in papa’s thick burnished locks, with variations of pulling his whiskers and mustache and then tenderly kissing the above hirsute appendages to make them well again. And papa, like all other young papas, looked, as if he thought her the most wonderful baby that ever lived, and danced her up and down until she forgot all sense of etiquette and propriety, and fairly screamed with delight.
“Now, nurse, take Miss Minnie,” he said, rising at last, and laughingly shaking back his thick, fair hair. “Come, Minnie, be good now; papa must go.”
Still crowing as if she considered she had done something rather extraordinary than otherwise, Miss Minnie allowed herself to be taken by the nurse, and saw papa and mamma, and the little lady in velvet and diamonds, smile a good-bye, and turn to leave the room.
“Foolish little wife,” said Lord Villiers, laughing, as he saw Lady Maude cast a “longing, lingering look behind” at her heart’s treasure, “can you not even tear yourself away from your darling for a few hours, without straining your eyes to catch a last glimpse?”
“I know it is foolish,” said Lady Maude, half-apologetically, yet still keeping her yearning eyes fixed on little Erminie; “but I feel so strangely about leaving her tonight. You will be sure to take good care of her, Martha?”
“Sartin, my lady,” responded Martha, rather offended at their want of trust in her care.
“Now, Maude,” said Lord Villiers, amused at her still-apparent anxiety.
Half-laughing, half-reluctant, she allowed herself to be drawn from the room, and saw the door close between her and her child.
Down in the spacious drawing-room, Lady Maude soon found herself fully occupied in receiving the guests, who began to arrive thick and fast. But this did not remove her strange anxiety concerning Erminie; and about an hour after, she stole away for a moment to pay a hurried visit to the nursery.