"You are Leonora West, the housekeeper's niece, I presume?"
"Yes, madame, that is my name," Leonora answered, with another graceful bow. "And you are—Mrs. Lancaster!"
"Lady Lancaster, if you please," flashed the dowager, haughtily.
"Ah?" smoothly. "Lady Lancaster, I beg your pardon. You see we have no titles in America. A plain Mrs. is a title of honor in itself, and when one comes to England one is apt to forget the requirements of rank."
A graceful, simple explanation enough; but Elise, who kept close beside her mistress, saw a roguish gleam in the blue-gray eyes shaded by the drooping black lashes.
"She is laughing in her sleeve at my lady," thought the astute maid; but she did not resent the girlish impertinence in her mind. Lady Lancaster snubbed her handmaid so often that Elise rather enjoyed seeing her snubbed in her turn.
Lady Lancaster dimly felt something in the suave, silver-sweet tones that vaguely angered her.
"You are very excusable, Miss West," she said, tartly and insultingly. "One has to pardon much to American impudence and ignorance."
Leonora looked at her with the full gaze of her clear orbs.
"I hardly think I understand you, Lady Lancaster," said she, calmly.