"What grand people?" the girl cried.
"Oh, hold your tongue—hold your tongue, Lilias! I would not have her suspect—but who can tell what kind of people may be coming? Something always happens when people are out; and then this ball——"
"Margaret," cried Lilias, "don't go out this afternoon. Jean thinks that people may be calling—somebody who could get us tickets——"
"Oh! not me, not me," cried Jean, putting her hand on the girl's mouth. "I never said such a thing. It was just an imagination—or a presentiment——"
"Well," said Margaret, with her bonnet on, "Jean is just as able to receive the finest company as I am. She is looking very nice, she has a little colour. To be silly now and then is good for the complexion; she is fluttered with the sight of her young friend—is it friend you call him, Jean?"
"What could I call him else?" cried Jean, with dignity. "I will never call a man more, as you well know; and besides, I might be his mother. And why should I call him less, seeing he has always been so good to me, and one that I think much of? But I am not expecting Mr. Murray, you need not be feared for that. It is just a kind of presentiment," Miss Jean said.
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
Miss Jean sat down to her work at the window when the others went out. There was a balcony full of flowers which prevented her from seeing anything more distinct than the coming and going of the carriages, but that was enough to keep her in a flutter of awed and excited expectation. Lewis had said that his friends would call at once, and the idea of receiving a foreign lady, a foreign ambassadress, who perhaps did not speak English, made Miss Jean tremble from the lace of her cap to the toe of her slipper. She tried to remember the few words of school-book French which lingered in her mind; but what if the lady spoke only Greek? In that case, their intercourse would need to be carried on by signs: or, since she was an ambassadress, she would perhaps carry an interpreter with her. Jean did not know the manners and habits of such people. To be left to encounter such a formidable person alone was terrible to her. And what would so great a lady think if she came in expecting Margaret, whom no doubt Lewis would have described, and found only Jean? "We saw nobody but a homely sort of country person,"—that was what she would say. But the case was desperate, and though, when the moment actually arrived, and an imposing carriage and pair dashed up with all the commotion possible to the door, and the knocker resounded through the house, Miss Jean's heart beat so loudly in her ears that it drowned the very knocker, yet still there was a sort of satisfaction in thus venturing for the sake of Lilias, facing such an excitement for her benefit, and obtaining for her what even Margaret had not been able to obtain.
Simon, creaking along the passage in his creaking shoes, seemed to tread upon Miss Jean's heart. Would he never be ready? She waited, expecting every moment the door to open, the sweep of silken draperies, or perhaps—who could tell?—the entrance of a resplendent figure in costume other than that of fashion; for Jean was aware that Greece was in the east, and had been delivered in her youth out of its subjection to the Turks, and that the men wore kilts, and the women probably——These were long before the days of the dual dress, and the idea filled her with alarm. She put away her work with trembling hands, and stood listening, endeavouring to calm herself and make her best curtsey, but in a whirl of anxiety lest Simon should not say the name right or else be unable to catch it. But when, instead of this extraordinary ordeal, she heard the clang, the stir, the glittering sound of hoofs and wheels and harness, and became aware that the carriage had driven away, Jean came to herself quite suddenly, as if she had fallen to the ground. It was a relief unspeakable, but perhaps, also, it was a little disappointment. She dropped back upon her chair. To go through so many agonies of anticipation for nothing is trying too. And Simon came upstairs as if he were counting his steps, as if it was of no consequence!