But I did acknowledge it, not with that guardedness of the feelings which Miss Austen seemed to recommend, but from the very depths of my heart. Next morning came Lady Pollacke's invitation:—
"Dear Miss M.,—I hasten to renew my invitation of last Thursday. Will you give us the pleasure of your company at tea on Friday afternoon? Mrs Monnerie—the younger daughter, as you will remember, of Lord B.—has expressed an exceedingly warm wish to make your acquaintance, and Mr. Pellew, who is giving us a course of sermons at St. Peter's during Holy Week, will also be with us. May we, perhaps, share yet another of those delightful recitations?
"Believe me,
"Yours sincerely,
"Lydia Preston Pollacke."
I searched my memory for memorial of Lord B.; alas, in vain. This lapse made the thought of meeting his younger daughter a little alarming. Yet I must confess to having been pleasantly flattered by these attentions. Even the black draught administered by Fanny, who had not even thought it worth her while to send me a word of excuse or explanation, lost much of its bitterness. I asked Mrs Bowater if she supposed I might make Sir Walter a little present in return for his. Would it be a proper thing to do, would it be ladylike?
"What's meant kindly," she assured me, after a moment's reflection, "even if taken amiss, which, to judge from his letter, it won't be, is nothing to be thought of but only felt."
This advice decided me, and early on my Friday morning I trimmed and freshened up as well as I could one of my grandfather's dwarf cedar-trees which, in the old days, had stood on my window balcony. Its branches were now a little dishevelled, but it was still a fresh and pretty thing in its grey-green pot.
Chapter Twenty-Four
With this dwarf tree in my arms, when came the auspicious afternoon, I followed Lady Pollacke's parlourmaid—her neat little bonnet tied with a bow under her ear—down my Bateses, and was lifted by Mrs Bowater into the carriage. How demure a greeting we exchanged when, the maid and I having seated ourselves together under its hood, my glance fell upon the bloodstone brooch pinned conspicuously for the occasion near the topmost button of her trim, outdoor jacket. It gave me so much confidence that even the sudden clatter of conversation that gushed out over me in the doorway of Lady Pollacke's drawing-room failed to be disconcerting. The long, flowery room was thronged with company, and everybody was talking to everybody else. On my entry, as if a seraph had spoken, the busy tongues sank instantly to a hush. I stood stilettoed by a score of eyes. But Sir Walter had been keeping good watch for me, and I at once delivered my great pot into his pink, outstretched hands.
"My dear, dear young lady," he cried, stooping plumply over me, "the pleasure you give me! A little masterpiece: and real old Nankin. Alas, my poor Hypnos!"