On the spur of the moment they could not think of anyone. Why, oh why, had she not gone to the house agent and done her business through him!
Lady Pell was looking from one to the other with an amused smile. She had heard a good deal from one of her friends about the twins and their little peculiarities. “Who is that very pretty girl I saw busy in the garden just now?” she asked.
“That is our niece,” responded Miss Jane, speaking for the first time.
“Then perhaps she will condescend to act as my cicerone.”
The faces of the sisters lighted up.
“You could not have a more efficient one,” responded Miss Matilda.
“I have a weakness for young and pretty faces,” resumed Lady Pell, “due perhaps to the fact that it is so long since I was young myself and that at no time was I ever otherwise than plain-looking.”
Ethel was at once summoned, introduced to Lady Pell, and told what was required of her. In a very short time the two were being driven in the brougham in the direction of Vale View, calling on their way at the house agent’s to obtain possession of the keys.
When they got back to Rose Mount, afternoon tea had just been brought in, whereupon Miss Matilda begged of her ladyship to join them, which she frankly did. But long before this she and Ethel had become on excellent terms with each other, for, unlike the sisters, who had been rather overawed by their visitor’s authoritative manner and high-pitched voice, the girl had hardly been ten minutes in Lady Pell’s company before, as by a sort of instinct, she seemed to divine the existence of the really fine qualities out of which her character was built up. Lady Pell recognised this and was proportionally gratified, and from that moment she laid herself out to draw Ethel to her by a bond which should prove a source of interest and pleasure to both.
By the time tea was over the sisters had discovered that their first and not altogether flattering estimate of Lady Pell was a quite erroneous one. They too felt drawn towards her although in a lesser degree, just as Ethel had been. Behind a magisterial and somewhat repellent exterior, which to many people caused her to seem a somewhat formidable personage, lay a transparent sincerity of purpose and a hatred of pretence or cant of any kind, which had an attraction for, and gradually endeared her to, those of a like disposition to her own. Then too, she was a well-informed person, with singularly clear and observant faculties, who, when she chose, could be very good company, and on the present occasion she did so choose. She had not failed to notice that the sisters had been repelled, and perhaps somewhat cowed, by her slightly aggressive manner at their opening interview, and she now set herself to reverse the mental verdict which they had evidently passed upon her.