At this Lilias looked up with her eyes shining through the wetness that still hung upon her eyelashes.
"It is very, very nice to think of, I don't deny. Oh, and awfully, awfully kind of you to think of it."
(Let it be said here in a parenthesis that this "awfully, awfully," on the lips of Lilias was not slang, but Scotch.)
"I think it is rather good of us. It was never done, as she says, for either Jean or me."
"I doubt if it would have made any difference," said Miss Jean. "What is to be will be; and making a curtsey to the Queen—unless one could get to be acquainted with Her Majesty, which would be a great honour and pleasure——"
"It just makes all the difference," said Miss Margaret, who was more dogmatic; "it just puts the stamp upon a lady. If you're travelling it opens the doors of foreign courts, if you stay at home—well, there is always the Drawing-room to go to."
"And can you go whenever you like, after you have been once introduced?" Lilias added, with a gleam of eagerness.
"Surely, my dear; you send in your name, and you put on your court dress."
"That will be very nice," said the girl. Her bosom swelled with a sigh of pleasure. "For of course the finest company must be always there, and you will hear all the talk that is going on, and see everybody—ambassadors and princes, when they come on visits. Of course you would not be of much importance among so many grand people, just like the 'ladies, &c.,' in Shakespeare. They say nothing themselves, but sometimes the Queen will beckon to them and send them a message, or make them hold her fan, or bring her a book; but you hear all the conversation and see everybody."
"I am afraid," said Miss Jean, who had been watching an opportunity to break in, "you are thinking of maids-of-honour and people in office. Drawing-rooms——" but here she caught her sister's eye and broke off.