‘I have brought a friend to introduce to you, Miss Mab: and I expect you to be friends at once, although you have never seen each other before.’
‘Have I never seen him before?’ said Mab. ‘Perhaps you are mistaken, Mr. Leo. I am sure I know his face, though I don’t know his name.’
And then the young men both laughed. ‘I will tell you where you have seen his face—in your own glass when you dress in the morning—I am sure you never look at it afterwards. This is Lord Will Pakenham, Miss Mab, and to be sure you ought to have known each other all your lives.’
‘Lord Will——’ Mab grew very red from the tip of her chin to the untidy locks on her forehead. ‘Does that mean Lord William—my father’s name?’
‘And I am your cousin Will,’ said the young man.
Mab paused a few moments longer before she held out to him her big gardening glove. ‘I do not remember my father,’ she said, ‘so you cannot remind me of him. Did we ever—perhaps when we were little children—see each other before?’
‘Every time,’ said Leo, ‘did I not tell you, that you have looked in the glass.’
I do not know what was the effect at that moment upon Lord Will, but the impression on Mab’s mind was one full of pleasure. These other people, with their clean-cut features, Leo himself, her cousin Emmy, who had the impertinence to be like Mab’s own mother, who belonged to her—were a sort of reproach to the girl. But here was somebody who had a blunt nose, and eyes which were rather dull in colour, like her own, and who looked friendly, homely, as if he did not mind—who also smiled upon her in a very natural way, as if he too felt that he had known her all his life. ‘Stop,’ said Mab, suddenly drawing off her glove with her white, strong, small teeth. ‘This time my hand is cleaner than my glove.’ She caught the glove in her other hand as it fell. If she had been a year older, of course she would not have done it: and her frock was short and her manner entirely at ease. Though she had been at a dance, and might be supposed to have come out, she was still Lady William’s little girl.
‘Come in to mother; she will be glad to see you,’ she added immediately. ‘I can’t go into the drawing-room, can I, with all this? and I must get these put in before I do anything. Mr. Leo, please go in to mother; you know the way.’
Next minute Leo was presenting Lord Will to Lady William. It was a very curious scene. She rose up in the midst of her thoughts, wondering, questioning with herself what she was to do, and heard in a moment her husband’s name pronounced in her ears. The effect was so great that as she rose hastily from her chair the blood forsook her face altogether. She held by the table before her, letting her work fall out of her hand.