“Mrs Wandle,” she ejaculated in a stage whisper.—“Stasy, jump up. For goodness’ sake, let us be dignified to her.”
For Stasy was sitting on a low footstool on the hearthrug, doing nothing, as was rather a favourite occupation of hers, and greatly enjoying the agreeable glow of the fire, which had sunk down to the pleasant redness preceding the sad necessity of “fresh coals,” and the consequent “spoiling it all” for the next half-hour.
“Coal-fires are very interesting, I find,” she had just been saying. “It almost makes up for the pleasure of turning the logs and seeing the sparks fly out, to watch the pictures in a coal-fire. The fairy castles and the caverns, and the— Oh, there is Monsieur Bergeret’s nose! Do look, Blanche. Did you ever see anything so exactly like?”
But “Jump up, Stasy,” was all the reply she got, and as the door slowly opened, a repeated whispered warning—“Mrs Wandle.”
The name was not clearly audible which Deborah announced, but she announced something, and to the prepossessed ears of her audience it sounded as like “Mrs Wandle” as anything else. And in trotted, with as much dignity as a stout, short person can achieve, a lady enveloped in furs and wraps, who, after glancing round her with a sort of “nonchalant” curiosity, held out a somewhat limp hand to Mrs Derwent.
“How de do?” she began. “I heard from Mrs—” (afterwards, with a sensation of guilt and self-reproach, Blanche had to own to herself that the name had not sounded like “Burgess”) “that you—I mean that she would like me to call, though it’s quite out of my way to come into Blissmore. Are these your daughters?—How de do? how de do?”
And then she sank into a chair, apparently at an end of her conversational resources.
“What an impertinent, vulgar old cat!” thought Stasy, shivering prospectively at the “all your doings” which she felt sure were in reserve for her.
But aloud, of course, she said nothing, only sat motionless, her great dark eyes fixed on the stranger with a peculiar expression which Blanche knew well.
For a moment or two there was silence. Then Mrs Derwent’s clear, quiet tones sounded through the room.