"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter to
Mr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?"
Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. The elder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxious to please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristic physique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had in conversation—half absent, half critical—which was inherited from her father,—all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and she felt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her.
Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece;
Polly looked timidly at her cousin.
"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said.
And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve and handed it to Laura.
Laura held it up for scrutiny.
"No—o," she said coolly, "not really handsome."
Polly looked disappointed.
"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome," she said with emphasis.
"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome," said Laura, laughing, and handing back the picture.