She untied the blue beads and dangled them before the baby's eyes, and he caught at them and gurgled in baby glee. Cassandra sat silent, rigid, and cold, unheeding the child or the girl, only vaguely hearing the chatter.
"And that will be grand, won't it, baby? But he is a love, this boy! There is Daneshead Castle now, ma'm. You see it through the trees, but the grounds are so large we have to drive a good bit before we are there."
The driver turned the ponies' heads, and they scampered through a high stone gateway and along a smooth road which wound through a dense wood, with green open spaces interspersed, where deer were browsing. All was very beautiful and quiet and sweet, but Cassandra, sitting with wide-open eyes, gravely beautiful, did not see it.
To the girl everything was delightful. She had not the slightest doubt that the American lady was very rich. That she travelled so simply and alone was nothing. They all did queer things—the Americans. She was obtusely unconscious that she had been speaking slightingly of them to one of themselves, and she talked on after the romantic manner of girls the world over, giving the gossip of the inn parlors as she listened to it evening after evening, where the affairs of the nobility were freely discussed and enlarged and commented upon with eager interest.
What was spoken in her ladyship's chamber and Lady Laura's boudoir—their half-formed plans and aspirations—carelessly dropped words and unfinished sentences—quickly travelled to the housekeeper's parlor—to the servant's table—to the haunts of grooms and stable boys—to the farmer's daughters—and to the public rooms of the Queensderry Inn.
Thus it was Cassandra heard tales of the brother and sister and mother of her David, and of him also. How it was said that once he was engaged to a rich tradesman's daughter but had broken it off and gone to America against the wishes of all his family, and had become a common practitioner there to the disgust of all his relatives; and again Cassandra felt that she had left a sweet and lovely world behind her to step into "Vanity Fair."
She tried to hold fast her faith in goodness and high purpose. She was sure—sure—David had been moved by noble motives; why should she not trust him now? Did this girl know him better than she—his wife? Yet, in spite of her valiant spirit, two facts fell like leaden weights upon her heart. David had not told his people that he had a wife, and they would be offended that he had "tied himself to a common sort over there." This David whom she loved was so high above her in the eyes of all his relatives and perhaps even in his own. What—ah, what could she do! Might she still hold him in her heart? She could not walk in upon them now and betray him—never—never.
Her lips grew pale, and her head swam, but she sat still, leaning a little forward in the moving phaeton, her hands tightly clasped in her lap and her babe unheeded at her side, until the red returned to her lips and again burned in a clearly defined spot against the pallor of her cheek. She did not know that a strange, unearthly beauty was hers. A carriage met them filled with gay people. She did not notice them, but they gazed at her and turned to look again as they passed.
"I say, you know!" said one of the men, as they whirled by.
"There, that was Lady Geraldine Temple in that carriage, and the young man who stared so hard is her son. They've been paying a visit, or maybe they've brought Lady Clara to stay a bit. They say both families are keen for the match—and why shouldn't they be? Oh, they'll entertain the king here some day, and then there'll be high times at Daneshead!"