“If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very agreeable, Ursula,” said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little. Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to herself, she would try to be nice—was not that a girl's first duty? She tried for her part to be nice to everybody, to talk when she could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance into the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which were totally out of Ursula's way.
“There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room,” Anne said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.
“The drawing-room carpet will do very well,” he said. “It will last out my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself.”
This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too, like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were “the fashion.” Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell Janey of—which would be next best.
Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of them. They were the nearest approach to “her own people” that the poor soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with deprecating looks.
“I am sure you are very good—very good to say so. I am afraid it was not much amusement to you. They were not the kind of people—”
“I scarcely knew a soul,” said Sir Robert; “it was a curious sensation. It does one good now and then to have a sensation like that. It shows you that after all you are not such a fine fellow as you thought yourself. Once before I experienced something of the same feeling. It was at a ball at the Tuileries—but even then, after a while, I found English people I knew, though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by Jove! except yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here.”
Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was intended to feel it.
“Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable people,” she said, with a little spirit. “He prefers his old friends.”
“That is very nice of him,” cried Anne, “so much the kindest way. I liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people come and ask me to dance for duty, pretending not to see that my dancing days are over.”