“I don’t know how that may be. We are really more a nursery-party than anything else.”
“Oh, don’t say so, Lady Penton! with those two charming girls.”
The mother’s eye followed the wave of the visitor’s hand, and she could not but feel that there was truth in this. She had not thought of Ally and Anne from this point of view. They were not beauties, she was aware. Still, looking at them as they were now, a thrill of that satisfaction and complacency which is at once the most entirely unselfish and the most egotistical of sentiments warmed her bosom. She felt, contrasting them with the somewhat artificial neatness of the Rochford young lady, and the bluntness of little Mab on the other hand, that they might very well be called charming girls. She had rarely had creatures of the same species to compare them with.
“They are very young,” she said, “and we have had little opportunity to do anything for them; they are not at all acquainted with the world.”
“And that is such a charm, I always think! When my son brought Miss Penton to us the other night she had that look of wanting her mother which is so sweet. Mrs. Penton of course had all her guests to look to, and the anxiety about her father. I was so happy to take your dear girl under my motherly wing. It is broad enough,” said Mrs. Rochford, raising a little the arm which was clothed in sealskin and beaver, or in something else more costly than these, if there is anything more costly, and which indeed had an air of softness and warmth which was pleasant. She was what is called a motherly woman, large and caressing, and really kind. She might perhaps have found the courage to keep a poor girl at “a proper distance” had her son been in danger, but otherwise in all probability would have been kind to Ally even had she not been Miss Penton of Penton. And in that case would have taken no credit for it, such as in the present she felt it expedient to insist upon.
“You will be going nowhere in your mourning,” said Miss Rochford to Ally, “it will be so dull for you just at this time of the year. I do so wish you would come to us a little. We don’t give parties, not often; but there is always something going on. Mamma is very good, she never minds the trouble. And Charley is the very best of brothers, he is always trying to keep us amused. Now if you would come there’s nothing he wouldn’t do. We could give you a mount if you hunt. My sister doesn’t ride. I should be so happy to have another girl to go out with me. Oh, do come. And if the frost holds there will be skating. You will have to be quiet, of course, at home for the sake of your mourning, but with us you needn’t mind. Oh, do! It would be so delightful to have you. Charley was very despondent about it. He thought you would be so much too grand for us, who are only Reading people, but I said I was sure you were not one to forget old friends.”
“Too grand!” cried Ally, turning red. “Oh, no, no.” It was not surely that she was too grand. Still there was something—a sentiment of repugnance, a drawing back—which, if it was that, was the meanest sentiment, she thought, in the world.
“No, I am sure not,” said Miss Ethel Rochford. “I knew you were not one to throw over old friends.”
Were they old friends? She was very much puzzled by this question. It seemed so ungracious to make any exception to a claim made with such kindness and enthusiasm. But Ally did not know what answer to make when the ladies at length had rustled away back to their carriage, still very caressing and cordial, but somewhat disappointed, since Lady Penton, with a firmness not at all in keeping with her character, had declined the invitation to Ally.
“Are you such great friends with these people?” asked Anne, before the sealskin had quite swept out of the door; and, “Were you so much with them at the ball?” said Lady Penton, sitting down, and turning her mild eyes upon her daughter with great seriousness. Poor Ally felt as if she were a culprit at the bar.