“Dear cousin, how is this? Not dressed for dinner? ’Tis within five minutes of the hour!”
It was the pretty Lora Lovelace who, tripping into the room, asked these questions—Lora fresh from her toilette, and radiant with smiles.
There was no heaviness on her heart—no shadow on her countenance. Walter and she had spent the morning together; and, whatever may have passed between them, it had left behind no trace of a cloud.
“I do not intend dressing,” rejoined Marion. “I shall dine as you see me.”
“What, Marion! and these strange gentlemen to be at the table!”
“A fig for the strange gentlemen! It’s just for that I won’t dress. Nay, had my father not made a special request of it, I should not go to the table at all. I’m rather surprised, cousin, at your taking such pains to be agreeable to guests thus forced upon us. For which of the two are you setting your snare, little Lora—the conceited captain, or his stupid subaltern?”
“Oh!” said Lora, with a reproachful pouting of her pretty lips; “you do me wrong, Marion. I have not taken pains on their account. There are to be others at the table besides the strangers.”
“Who?” demanded Marion.
“Who—why,”—stammered Lora, slightly blushing as she made answer, “why, of course there is uncle Sir Marmaduke.”
“That all?”