The day of the breakfast arrived; the noon-day sun shone with a tempered radiance upon the velvety turf, the great clumps of blue and pink hydrangeas, and the flower borders of rich and varied color, on the shaven lawns. It was a delicious August forenoon, and the warm and scented air had a clear and charming freshness. The shaded piazzas of the Farebrother cottage, with masses of greenery banked about them, made a beautiful background for the dainty girls and well-groomed men who alighted from the perfect equipages that rolled up every minute. Presently a “hack” in the last stage of decrepitude passed through the open and ivy-grown gateway, and as it drew up upon the graveled circle, Letty Corbin, in her white dress and a large white hat, rose from the seat. Farebrother was at her side in an instant, helping her to descend. Usually, Letty’s face was of a clear and creamy paleness, but now it was flushed with a wild-rose blush. It had suddenly dawned upon her that the ramshackly rig, which was quite as good as anything she was accustomed to in Virginia, did not look very well amid the smart carriages that came before and after her. However, it in no wise destroyed her self-possession, as it would have done that of some of the girls who descended from the smart carriages. And there was Farebrother with his kind voice and smile, waiting to meet her at the steps, and pouring barefaced compliments in her ear, which last Miss Letty relished highly.
The two girls received her cordially, and introduced her to one or two persons. But they could not devote their whole time to her, and in a little while Letty drifted into the cool, shaded, luxurious drawing-room, and found that she was left very much to herself. The men and girls around her chatted glibly among themselves, but they seemed oblivious of the fact that there was a stranger present, to whom attention would have been grateful. Two very elegant looking girls talked directly across her, and were presently joined by a man who quite ignored her even by a glance, and although she sat between him and the girls, he kept his eyes fixed on them. Letty thought it was very bad manners.
“At Corbin Hall,” she thought bitterly, “a stranger would have been overwhelmed with kind attentions”; but apparently at Newport a stranger had no rights that a cottager was bound to respect.
“The fact is, Miss Cornwell,” said the man, in the studied, low voice of the “smart set,” “I’ve been nearly run off my legs this week by Sir Archy Corbin. He’s the greatest fellow for doing things I ever saw in my life. And he positively gives a man no rest at all. We’ve always been good friends, but I shall have to ‘cut him’ if this thing keeps up.”
The lie in this statement was not in the least obvious to Letty, but was perfectly so to the young women, who knew there was not the remotest chance of Sir Archy Corbin being cut by any of their set. The name, though, at once struck Letty, and her mobile face showed that she was interested in the subject.
“Will he be at the meet on Thursday, Mr. Woodruff?” asked the girl, suddenly dropping her waving fan and indolent manner, and showing great animation. At this, Woodruff answered with a slightly embarrassed smile:
“Well—er—no, I hardly think so. You know, in England, this isn’t the hunting season—”
“Oh, no,” struck in Miss Cornwell, perfectly at home in English customs, “their hunting season is just in time to break up the New York season.”
Letty’s face, which was very expressive, had unconsciously assumed a look of shocked surprise. Hunting a fox in August! For Letty knew nothing of the pursuit of the fierce and cunning aniseseed bag. Her lips almost framed the words, “How dreadful!”
Woodruff, without glancing at her, but taking in swiftly the speaking look of disgusted astonishment, framed with his lips something that sounded like “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”