He turned to Lady Strange. “What say you, Cousin Di? I suppose we shall be driving on as soon as we have dined—”
“You shall dine with me,” broke in Foxwell. “I’ll not lose sight of your faces. I don’t meet a civilized being once in an age.—You will set more places, landlady: my friends will dine here.” Without waiting for their assent, he motioned the landlady out to the passage, and there gave further orders.
The attention of the three Londoners now fell upon the two figures at the window. Miss Foxwell, quite ignored by her uncle since the arrival of his friends, had remained where she was, regarding the newcomers with a side glance in which there was no great joy at their advent. Now that she saw their looks directed to her, she turned her face again toward the street, with a slight blush at the scrutiny.
“What a pretty girl it is at the window,” whispered Lady Strange to her companions.
“And what is she doing here with Foxwell?” said Mrs. Winter, eying the young lady critically.
“The dog!—he is to be envied,” said Rashleigh.
Resentfully conscious of the cool gaze upon her, Miss Foxwell whispered to her maid, “How rudely those people stare at us!”
“They must be very great quality,” replied the maid, reverentially. “Their waiting-gentleman looks the height of fashion,—but their woman isn’t no great sights.” Miss Foxwell’s maid had been quick to inspect the attendants of the travellers, and the lackey had already put himself on ogling terms with her, a proceeding which the other maid regarded superciliously.
As soon as Foxwell returned to his friends, Rashleigh called him to account in an undertone: “I say, Foxwell, if this county produces such flowers as that at the window, ’tis not so barren a wilderness.”
“That?” said Foxwell, carelessly. “Oh, that’s my niece, Miss Foxwell. Come here, Georgiana.”