“We were not there,” said Anne, in a very decisive tone. Disapproval, annoyance, a little wistfulness, a little envy were in her voice. “We don’t go anywhere,” she said.
“Not yet, I understand,” said the stranger again. There was a soothing tone about him generally. He seemed to make nothing of the privations and disabilities of which they were so keenly conscious. “I have a sister who is not out,” he went on. “I tell her she has the best of it; for nothing is ever so delightful as the parties you don’t go to, when you are very young.”
They paused over this, a little dazzled by the appearance of depth in the saying. It sounded to them very original, and this is a thing that has so great a charm for girls. He went on pleasantly, “There are to be some entertainments, I hear, at Penton when everything is settled. I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you there.”
“At Penton! we are never at Penton,” they cried in the same breath; but then Ally gave Anne a look, and Anne, being far the most prompt of the two, made an immediate diversion. “There is father coming through the garden,” she said. It was a principle in the family to maintain a strict reserve in respect to Penton, never permitting any one to remark upon the want of intercourse between the families. It is needless to say that this was a very unnecessary reserve, as everybody knew what were the relations between Sir Walter and his heir. But this is a delusion common to many persons more experienced in the ways of the world than the poor Pentons of the Hook.
Mr. Penton came in making a great noise with his big boots upon the tiles of the hall. He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in with a nod of recognition which was not very cordial. “Good-morning, Mr. Rochford,” he said; “I am sorry I have kept you waiting. Perhaps you will come with me to my room, where we shall be undisturbed.”
The young man hesitated a little. He made the girls a bow more elaborate than is usual with young Englishmen.
“If I am not so fortunate as to see you again before I go—” he said, with his eyes on Ally—and how could Ally help it? She was not in the habit of meeting people who looked at her so. She blushed, and made an inclination of her head, which took Anne, who gave him an abrupt little nod, quite by surprise. “Why,” the girl cried, almost before the door closed, “Ally, you gave him a sort of dismissal as if you had been a queen.”
“What nonsense!” Ally said, but she blushed once more all over, from the edge of her collar to her hair. “I wonder,” she said, “whether Cousin Alicia can leave us out, if she is going to give entertainments as he says.”
“When everything is settled—what does that mean, when everything is settled?” cried Anne.
“It means, I suppose,” said Walter, gloomily, “when Penton has been given over, when we have fallen down among the lowest gentry, just kept up a little (and that’s not much) by the baronetcy which they can not take away. Father can’t sell that, I believe. Mrs. Russell Penton may be a very great lady, but she can’t succeed to the baronetcy. Leave us out! Do you mean to say that—over my body, as it were, you would go!”