“I will come in,” said Arminell readily. Her heart warmed to the woman who had been so valued by her mother.
The house was tidy, dismal indeed, and small, but what made it most dismal was the strain after grandeur, the gay table-cover, the carpet with large pattern, the wall paper black with huge bunches of red and white roses on it, out of keeping with the dimensions of the room.
Arminell looked round and felt a rising sense of the absurdity, the affectation, the incongruity, that at any other moment would have made her laugh inwardly, though too well-bred to give external sign that she ridiculed what she saw.
“Ah miss!” said Mrs. Saltren, “you’re looking at that beautiful book on the table. My lady gave it me herself, and I value it, not because of what it contains, nor for the handsome binding, but because of her who gave it to me.”
Arminell took up the book and opened it.
“But—” she said,—“the date. It is an annual, published three years after my mother’s death.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, miss, I did not say my late lady gave it me. I said, my lady. I know how to distinguish between them. If it had been given me by your dear mother, who is gone, my late lady, do you suppose it would be lying here? I would not keep it in the room where I sit but rarely, but have it in my bed-chamber, where I could fold my hands over it when I pray.”
“I should like,” said Arminell, “to see the sheet that my poor dear mother gave you, and which you cherish so fondly, to wrap about you in the grave.”
“With pleasure,” said Mrs. Saltren. “No—I won’t say with pleasure, for it calls up sad recollections, and yet, miss, there is pleasure in thinking of the goodness of that dear lady who is gone. Lor! miss, it did seem dreadful that my dear lady when on earth didn’t take precedency over the daughter of an earl, but now, in heaven, she ranks above marchionesses.”
Then she asked Arminell to take a chair, and went slowly upstairs to search for the sheet. While she was absent the girl looked round her, and now her lips curled with derision at the grotesque strain after refinement and luxury which were unattainable as a whole, and only reached in inharmonious scraps and disconnected patches.