"Ah! is that Margaret Moffat?" cried the old lady. "'Tis sure where Prudence is, her shadow can not be far away! And, pray, what have your adventures been? Have not even bumpkin squires fallen to your charms? Surely Prudence has not carried off all the honors there as well as here?"
This was a hard thrust, for Peggie was as plain as her cousin was fair, and had entered her fourth decade without one serious assault upon her maiden heart. Devoted to Prue, she was too loyal to think that this was partly the fault of the youthful widow's all-devouring coquetry, but she was very human, and it wounded her to be forced into acknowledging the contrast.
"Alack, Peggie made short work of their hearts," cried Prue, coming to the rescue. "I only turned their heads. 'Tis strange how foolish men will always be about a widow."
"Foolish enough to marry one widow after being jilted by another," acquiesced the grandmother dryly. "I hear thy erstwhile lover, Lord Beachcombe, has married the Widow Curzon. The baker's daughter hath a second chance of wearing strawberry-leaves."
"She may have them for aught I care—along with the meanest, ugliest, most disagreeable man that ever decked his empty head withal," cried Prudence. "I am going to marry the finest gentleman in England—the bravest and handsomest—and the cleverest, too. When a man of parts is in Parliament, 'tis his own fault if he be not in the Cabinet—and once in the Cabinet there are garters and coronets to be had for the trouble of reaching after them."
"A politician, too!" sneered the countess. "Pray, which of our worthy statesmen has had his head turned by the widow?"
"Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert," replied Prue, and having got so far she stopped, and the blood rushed in a torrent to her face, crimsoning even her forehead and neck.
"Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert!" the old lady repeated slowly, while her dark, brilliant eyes seemed to burn down into Prue's inmost soul. "The same that fought the duel with Colonel O'Keefe?"
"Surely," murmured Prue, "I could do no better than give myself to the man who killed my traducer. If Colonel O'Keefe misunderstood or misinterpreted a piece of girlish bravado—was I to blame? And if he dared to comment disparagingly upon what he did not understand, and make a public jest of a woman who had only played a harmless joke upon him—you, dear Grandmother, would be the last to reproach the gentleman who drew sword in her vindication."
"Thereby leading every one to suppose that there was something to vindicate," retorted Lady Drumloch. "If the marriage really takes place, it will put a complete quietus upon ill-natured tongues, but bethink you how they will wag if this should prove another of your affaires manquées!"