“That’s right,” said Lady Harriot, increasingly pleased with them because she was feeling so very pleased with herself. “Then I shall expect you between four and five. You may like to walk about the grounds a little if you come early,” she added to Mrs Derwent, “as you used to know the place so well.—And remember, my dear,” she said to Blanche in conclusion, “that whomever I introduce you to, it will be done with a purpose. It will be an excellent thing for you to see some of the people about, especially as I shall make a point of wearing my bonnet.”
Blanche’s face looked very grave when their visitor had taken leave, and her mother glanced at her anxiously, fearing that Lady Harriot’s eminently clumsy remarks at the end had annoyed her.
“You mustn’t mind it, dear,” she said. “She is a stupid, awkward woman, but she means to be kind now, and we must really take people as we find them, to some extent.”
Blanche started as if recalling her thoughts, which had, indeed, been straying in a perfectly different direction.
“Of course we must,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t mind what she said in the very least. I don’t particularly care about going there, it is true; but if it amuses Stasy, and if you don’t mind it, mamma, I daresay I shall like it very well. We may see Miss Milward, and hear about poor Lady Hebe.” And then for the moment the subject was dismissed, though Mrs Derwent had her own thoughts about it.
“It is strange,” she said to herself, “how things come about. To think that our first invitation of any kind from the people I used to be one of, should have come in this way—almost out of pity.”