Mrs. Lovekin seized the opportunity to act as tea-maker to the party. She poured cream and sugar into the cups with the remark that there was no one in Stowel whose tastes in these respects she did not know, and she handed a plate of cake to Miss Belinda, saying,—
"There, my dear, you sit comfortable and eat that."
"Glory, glory, glory!" said Miss Belinda.
The Miss Traceys had tea dispensed to them by the same hand, and accepted it with that slight sense of bewilderment which Mrs. Lovekin sometimes makes us feel when she looks after us in our own houses; and Miss Lydia Blind distributed her thanks equally between her and the Miss Traceys.
Nothing was talked of that afternoon but the new house—its sunny aspect and its roomy cupboards in particular commanding the heartiest commendation. Presently the ladies were taken to see all over it, with the exception of one of the spare bedrooms and the drawing-room. They knew these rooms existed, because Miss Tracey paused at the door of each, and said lightly, "This is the drawing-room," and "This is another spare bedroom;" and although, as my sister confided to me, they would have given much to see the interior of the rooms, they could not do so, of course, uninvited.
They paused to admire something at every turn, even saying generously, but playfully, that there were many of Miss Tracey's possessions which they positively coveted for themselves. The Miss Traceys smilingly repudiated their felicitations, while Mrs. Lovekin accepted them and announced the price of everything. She became quite breathless, hurrying upstairs, while she exhibited stair-rods and carpets, and with shortened breath apostrophized them as being "real brass" or "the best Brussels at five-and-threepence." No one is vulgar in Stowel, but Mrs. Lovekin is, we fear, not genteel.
At the close of the visit, Mrs. Lovekin again ushered the visitors into the hall, and opening, "by the merest accident," as she afterwards said—without, however, gaining any credence for her statement—opening by the merest accident the door of the drawing-room, she peeped in.
The drawing-room was void of furniture. The wild thought came into Mrs. Lovekin's mind—had the Traceys overbuilt themselves, and had the furniture, which had been carried so proudly through the town on the top of the furniture-van, been sold to pay expenses? The suggestion was immediately put aside. The Miss Traceys' comfortable means were so well known that such an explanation could not be seriously contemplated for a moment. No; putting two and two together, a closed spare bedroom and an empty drawing-room, and bringing a woman's instinct to bear upon the question, it all pointed to one thing—the Miss Traceys were going to give a party, probably an evening party, in honour of the new house, and the drawing-room furniture was being stored for safety in the spare bedroom until the rout was over. Doubtless the first rumour of the Miss Traceys' party was meanly come by, but it was none the less engrossing, all the same. Miss Lydia hoped that no one would believe for a moment that she was in any way connected with the fraudulent intrusion that had been made into Miss Tracey's secret, and Miss Tracey said,—
"I have known Mary Anne Lovekin for thirty years"—this was understating the case, but numbers are not exactly stated as we grow older—"but I never would have believed that she could have done such a thing."
"Bad butter," said Miss Belinda, shaking her head in an emphatic fashion; "bad butter, bad butter!"