‘I suppose so,’ said Lady Fordyce; ‘but whether you will see much of her depends upon whether I consider her desirable company for you.’
‘She may be nice after all,’ hazarded Mary.
‘I trust that I am a fit judge of what a young lady should be,’ replied her mother. ‘As Lady Eliza Lamont spends most of her time in the stable, she is hardly the person to form my daughter-in-law successfully.’
‘She is Lady Eliza’s niece, ma’am, is she not?’
‘She is a relation—a poor relation, and no doubt gets some sort of salary for attending to her ladyship. I must say a paid companion is scarcely the choice that I should have made for Crauford. What a chance for her!’
‘She is most fortunate,’ echoed Agneta.
‘Fortunate? A little more than fortunate, I should think! Adventuresses are more often called skilful than fortunate. Poor, poor boy!’
With this remark Lady Fordyce opened an account-book which lay on her lap, and began to look over its items. The girls were silent.
Mary stitched on, and Agneta spread out some music she was copying; the leaden cloud which hung over domestic life at Fordyce Castle had settled down upon the morning when there was a sound of arrival in the hall outside. No bell had rung, and the sisters, astonished, suspended their respective employments and opened their mouths. Though there were things they proposed to teach Cecilia, their ways were not always decorative. Lady Fordyce, who was a little deaf, read her account-book undisturbed, and, when the door opened to admit Crauford, it slid off her brown silk knee like an avalanche.
‘I hardly expected you would take my hint so quickly,’ she said graciously, when the necessary embraces were over.