"We shall soon see when she comes to London," said Jacqueline, flourishing the poker.
"If she comes to see us! I don't see why she should. Lady Mabel Wynch-Frère and her brother have dropped us completely," said Wyn, with some bitterness. "The Valley of Avilion was one thing, London is another."
"I'm sure we don't want them," said Jacqueline, indifferently. "From your account, Lady Mabel was not the kind of person I should take to at all."
"She was excessively artificial, but not altogether uninteresting," observed Wyn, in her trenchant way. "They were both very kind to Osmond, but that was their humanity, you know—they would have done the same for any village yokel. Like Lady Geraldine,
'"She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon,
Such a man as I—'twere something to be level to her hate!"'
Jacqueline began to laugh.
"She is like Aunt Anna," she said.
Aunt Anna was the wife of a dean, and she never dared to invite any of her London-weary nieces to stay with her, lest they should unwittingly reveal to any of her titled friends the ghastly fact that they had to work for their living. Of this secret the said nieces were perfectly aware, and derived much amusement therefrom.
"Oh, I daresay she has never thought of us from that day to this," said Wyn, carelessly. "There's Hilda knocking. Let her in."
Hilda walked in like a duchess. Nature certainly had not intended the Miss Allonbys for daily governesses, and many a time had poor Hilda been doomed to hear the condemning words, "I am afraid, Miss Allonby, you are of too striking an appearance," from some anxious mother, who felt that life would be a burden when weighted with a governess so dignified that to suggest that she should take Kitty to the dentist's, or Jack to have his boots tried on, would seem a flagrant insult.