“Only go on a little longer as you have begun and it will be, I am sure,” purred her mother.
The day of the dinner party arrived.
A half hour before the Vallingham company were to start, Lady Randal knocked at Isabel’s door.
“Excuse me, dear,” she said, “but I wanted to see how you look before we start. I am particularly anxious that Lord and Lady Dunforth should be pleased with you. You know he is a relative of the family,” she concluded, with an accent of pride.
“I heard something to that effect,” responded Isabel; “but how is he connected?”
“His lordship and I are own cousins,” explained Lady Randal, while her face clouded for a moment, as if from some painful thought.
Then suddenly changing the subject, she exclaimed:
“But I need not have been anxious about your appearance, for you are just lovely. You have exquisite taste, my love, and I shall feel quite proud when you are my daughter. The blue velvet is charming, and your hair is very becomingly arranged, while that stomacher of pearls is superb. But”—and she started suddenly, while her face grew crimson—“but where did you get those coral ornaments?” and her eyes were fixed in utter astonishment, and with something of terror in them, upon the elegant coral and diamond cross, and butterfly hair ornament, which Isabel has just fastened in her hair, and clasped about her neck.
Isabel colored violently at the question.
Could she never wear those things without some one’s remarking them particularly, and continually reminding her that they were not her own?