‘You little flatterer! Emmy is a much better girl than I ever was, Mab, and perhaps that’s pretty much the same thing. She is a much better girl to tell the truth than my own little girl is.’
‘I know; my own opinion is that Emmy is too good. She is never out of temper, always puts up with everything, is bored by nobody. That, I understand, is one reason why—as you say, mother. For I think, to tell the truth, that to look really nice, and be like a human woman, you must not be quite so good.’
‘That is a dangerous doctrine, Mab. And it is not the question; which is, what do you think? The Pakenhams are more or less fashionable, and of course they have a fine position. With them you would see a little of the world. You would meet people very different from any you ever see here in the village. I am told that I ought to make advances to them; to tell them of my child who is growing up, and ought to be introduced properly into the world.’
‘Oh, is that what it means?’ said Mab. ‘Tell me more about them, that I may be able to judge. I don’t know anything at all about them, and how can I say?’
Lady William’s heart sank a little at this calm and judicial tone on the part of her child. She, too, jumped, as Mrs. Plowden had done, to the spectacle of Mab’s presentation under the wing of the Marchioness, and at all that might follow.
‘I have never seen Lady Pakenham or the girls. Your uncle I have seen, and he was—not unkind. No, I am sure he was not in the least unkind; he did what he could for me. He took a little notice of you as a baby, and so did the other brother—your uncle John. They were not clever, nor distinguished in any way; but they were by no means without feeling.’
‘That was when my father died.’
Lady William, who had rarely to Mab said anything about her father, nodded her head. Her eyes had a dreamy look, fixed far away. Mab never was sure whether it was for grief that her mother was so reticent, or from some other cause.
‘And do you mean to say, mother,’ said Mab, ‘that my aunt—if she is my aunt—never came near you when you were in such trouble?’
‘She is just exactly as much your aunt as your uncle James’s wife is—neither less nor more. No, she never came near me. But I was not surprised. It happened in Paris, and then I came away as soon as I could to this little place. I neither expected her to come to Paris, which would have been absurd: nor to come after me here, where she knew I would be among my own people.’