Anne, meanwhile, sat up stairs, busied with her ordinary work. She was the seamstress of the family, and the post was not by any means a sinecure.
The guests began to arrive, at last. Mr. Ambler, of Smoothlie, emerged from his dressing-room, neat as elderly, finical gentleman could be, with his carefully arranged dress, and wig, savoring of olden times. Mr. Ambler had been in India once, and alluded to the fact on all occasions; albeit, an indulged only son, with the snug enough of his lairdship to fall back upon, he had returned in the same vessel which took him out. But though Mr. Ambler was too fond of slippered ease to try his fortune under the burning sun of the East, his voyage supplied him with an inexhaustible fund of conversation, innocently self-complacent, in which India and its wonders had a place all incompatible with his brief experience of them.
Dashing in, full gallop, came the Falconers—the gay, bold brother and sister, fatherless and motherless, and entirely unrestrained in any way, whose wild freaks afforded so much material for gossip to the countryside. Then in a methodical, business-like trot, came in the sleek horses and respectable vehicle of Mr. Coulter, of Harrows; the Manse gig; the stately carriage of Mrs. Catherine, and other conveyances, whose occupants we need not specify by name. The room was filled. Alice Aytoun had never in her life been at so great a party.
She could distinguish on yonder sofa, in the corner, Mrs. Bairnsfather’s black satin gown, side by side with the strong thrifty hued silk of Mrs. Coulter, of Harrows. The Misses Coulter, in their Edinburgh robes, were near their mamma. They were very well-looking, well-dressed girls; but Alice’s own silk gown bore a comparison with theirs, and their ornaments were nothing like those delicate pearls. The discovery emboldened little Alice Aytoun, and took away her sole existing heaviness. She was fully prepared to enjoy herself.
The stately dinner, and all its solemnities, were over at last. The real pleasure of the evening was commencing; the company forming into gay knots; and Lewis doing the honors, with so rare a grace, that his mother almost forgot her own duties in admiration of her son. Alice Aytoun admired him, too. The pretty little stranger had become a sort of centre already, with the gayest and most attractive of all those varied groups, about her—and Lewis let no opportunity pass of offering his homage. Even on Mrs. Catherine’s strong features, as she sat near her charge, there hovered a mirthful smile. Mrs. Catherine herself was not displeased that the debut of her little stranger should be so much a triumph.
“A pretty girl—there is no doubt of that,” said the good-humored Mrs. Coulter. “James, do you not think she is like our Ada? See, the heads of the two are together, and Jeanie is behind them, with young Walter Foreman. I declare that lad is constantly hovering about Jeanie. Ah, Mrs. Bairnsfather, we have many cares who have a family!”
“No doubt,” said the little, fat, round-about Mrs. Bairnsfather, the childless minister’s wife, whose cares, diverted from the usual channel of children-loving, expended themselves upon the many comforts of herself, and her easy, comfortable husband. “You must be troubled in various ways now that the young people have got to man’s estate, and woman’s. But what were you calling Miss Adamina, Mrs. Coulter? I noticed a change in the name.”
Mrs. Coulter looked slightly confused.
“You see, Mrs. Bairnsfather, it is a cumbrous name—four syllables—and we must have some contraction. When they were all bairns, they used to call her Edie, poor thing; but that would not do now; and at school she got Ada, and it really is a prettier name, and quite a good diminutive: so we just adopted it.”
“Dear me! is that it?” said Mrs. Bairnsfather. “When I got the last note from Harrows I saw it was ‘A. M. Coulter.’ And that’s it!”