Rosy was conscious of the underlying disappointment, though she could not have defined it.
“I wish I could invite them to come to Crossburn,” she thought to herself. “I don’t like to see such a young girl so subdued and almost sad. But unless grandmamma would call, of course I can’t, and I’m afraid there is no use in trying for that.”
The Milwards had no mother, and their father’s mother, who had to some extent brought them up, was old, and naturally disinclined to make new acquaintances without strong motives for doing so; somewhat narrow and exclusive she was, too, in her ideas, and in this a great contrast to the old friend, with whom, nevertheless, she had much in common—Mrs Selwyn.
Just as Miss Milward was feeling about for some other topic of conversation which might interest her companion, Stasy bent towards her.
“Would you mind telling me who the girl is on my other side—she can’t hear, she is speaking to some one else?”
Rosy glanced across Stasy: she had forgotten for the moment who was sitting there.
“Oh yes,” she said; “that is—let me see. I often confuse the two families: they are cousins. Oh yes; that is Miss Wandle—Florry Wandle, Mrs Harrowby calls her. She helps a good deal with the guild. She has a nice, pretty face, hasn’t she?”
“Very pretty,” Stasy agreed, and she meant what she said, and something in Miss Milward’s tone gratified her. There was a tacit and tactful taking for granted that their little commentary on Miss Wandle was from the same point of view: there was no touch of surprise that Stasy did not already know the girl, or that the Pinnerton Green folk were not of the Derwents’ “world.”
Then they went on to talk a little of the guild and its interests, till a summons to Miss Milward to help at the tea-table interrupted the tête-à-tête. But Stasy’s mercurial spirits had risen again, and they rose still higher, when, encouraged by an almost imperceptible signal from Lady Hebe, she ventured to leave her place, and, as one of the youngest present, volunteered her services in handing about bread and butter and cakes.
And Blanche, meanwhile? On entering, she had at once been led over to the other end of the room, which was a long one, by Mrs Harrowby, and ensconsed in a corner beside Lady Hebe.