“She is not the very least French in herself,” said Hebe. “Just a touch of something out of the common in her tone and manners, perhaps. But I never met a more thoroughly English girl in feeling. Yes, indeed. What will she think when she is grown up?”
“Let us hope that things may improve for them a little, before then,” said Mrs Selwyn.
Then the two—the old woman and the young—put their heads together as to what they could do; the result being that, three or four days after the drive to Alderwood, a note was brought to Blanche one morning, inviting her and her sister to afternoon tea at the vicarage.
“I expect one or two young friends living in the neighbourhood,” wrote Mrs Harrowby, the vicaress, “whom you may like to meet, and who, on their side, have some hopes of getting you to help in their little local charities.”
“Humph,” said Stasy, when Blanche read this aloud; “I’ve no vocation for that sort of thing. I think you had better go without me.”
“No, I certainly won’t,” said her sister, without much misgiving. For she saw that, notwithstanding Stasy’s ungraciousness, she was secretly pleased at even this mild prospect of a little variety.
Mrs Harrowby’s attentions hitherto—though her good offices had been bespoken for the Derwents by her brother at Blissmore—had been less friendly, and more, so to say, professional. She was a very busy woman, almost too scrupulous in her determination to be “the same to everybody,” to show no difference between her bearing towards the retired tradespeople of Pinnerton Green, and towards Lady Marth, or other county dignitaries; the result being, that no attention she ever paid to any one was considered much of a compliment. But she was well-born and well-bred, though not specially endowed with tact.
And she was honestly pleased when Lady Hebe appealed to her to suggest something that might help to enliven the sisters at Pinnerton Lodge.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I have thought it must be very dull for them. And yet I could not exactly take it upon me to suggest their making friends with their neighbours here. Something in their manner has caused a slight prejudice against them. None of the families here have called.”
“What neighbours or families are you talking of, Mrs Harrowby?” said Hebe quickly. She knew the vicar’s wife very well—knew, too, her peculiar way of looking at social things, and was not in the very least in awe of her. “Lady Harriot has called, though—”