“There is a difference,” he said; “a slight difference. I am not so old as—papa.”
“Do you know papa? Do you know any of them? You must have met them,” said Bell, “if you are in society. Alice came out this year, and they went everywhere, and saw everybody, in society. Mamma told me so. Alice is the eldest,” the little girl went on, pleased to enter into the fullest explanations as soon as she had got started. “That is, not the eldest of all, you know, but the eldest of the girls. She was at all the balls, and even went out to dinner! but then it is no wonder, she is eighteen, and quite as tall as mamma.”
“Is she pretty?” said the gentleman.
He went on drinking glass after glass of the claret-cup, while Brown stood looking on alarmed, yet respectful. (“Such a little fellow as that, I thought he’d bust hisself,” Brown said.)
“She is not so pretty as mamma,” said the little girl. “Everybody says mamma is beautiful. I am the one that is most like her,” continued Bell, with naïve satisfaction. “There is a picture of her in the drawing-room; you can come and see.”
“Miss Isabel,” cried Brown, taking her aside. There was something important even in the fact of being taken aside to be expostulated with by Brown. “We don’t know nothing about the gentleman, miss,” said Brown. “I don’t doubt that it is all right—still he mightn’t be what he appears to be; and as it is me that is responsible to Sir William——”
“You need not trouble yourself about that, Brown,” said Bell, promptly. “Mamma said I was to have the charge of everything. I shall take him in and show him the pictures and things. I will tell papa that it was me. But Brown,” she added in an undertone, certain doubts coming over her, “don’t go away; come with us all the same. Marie might be frightened; I should like you to come all the same.”
Meantime the stranger had turned to Marie.
“Where do you come in the family?” he said. “Are there any younger than you?”
“No,” said Marie, hanging her head. She was the shy one of the family. She gave little glances at him sidelong, from under her eyelids; but edged a little further off when he spoke.