“And yet, Ethel, she seemed to please them,” answered Mrs. Chessingham, doubtfully. “But I was a little scandalized, I admit.”
“A little scandalized! Now, I do assure you, leaving out of account altogether any personal grievance about these two particular men, I never heard a girl talk so to men in all my life.”
Ethel told the truth this time and no mistake.
“Nor did I,” said Mrs. Chessingham. “But perhaps she’s not a fair type.”
“Didn’t Sir Archy tell us she was the most typical American that he has yet seen? And doesn’t Mr. Romaine know all about her family? And really,” continued Miss Maywood, getting off her high horse, and looking genuinely puzzled, “I scarcely know whether it would be right for me to make a companion of such a girl; you know her home is in the same county as Mr. Romaine’s place, quite near, I fancy—and we have been so carefully brought up by dear mama, and so often warned against associating with reckless girls, that I am not quite sure that we ought to know her when we go to Virginia.”
Here Mrs. Chessingham’s confidence in Reggie came to her help.
“Now don’t say that, Ethel dear. Reggie thinks her a charming girl, and you saw for yourself nobody seemed to take her seriously except ourselves, so the best thing for you to do is to go on quietly and be guided by circumstances.”
“But the way she made eyes!” said Miss Maywood, disgustedly. “It’s perfectly plain she means to marry either Mr. Romaine or Sir Archy—she advertises the fact so plainly that she’ll probably overshoot the mark. At all events, I shall be on my guard, and unless I am much mistaken, you will find that we can’t afford to know her.”
Meanwhile Letty, in the little sitting-room of their lodgings, was haranguing Colonel Corbin and Miss Jemima upon Miss Maywood’s iniquities.
“The most brazen piece, Aunt Jemima, actually saying that any girl would marry that old pachyderm, Mr. Romaine! I wouldn’t marry him if he was padded an inch thick with thousand-dollar bills! But she as good as said she would—and the way he poked fun at her! She agrees with everything he says, and she is making such a dead set at him that she can’t see the old gentleman’s game. I am perfectly disgusted with her.”