"I see you have got Evelyn there, Mr. Brand. Who is the extraordinary person he is always talking about now—the Maid of Saragossa, or Joan of Arc, or something like that? Do you know her?"
"I suppose you mean Miss Lind."
"I know he has persuaded mamma to go and call on her, and get her to dine with us, if she will come. Now, I call that kind."
"If she accepts, you mean?"
"No, I mean nothing of the sort. Good-bye. If we stay another minute, we shall have the middle detachments overlapping the vanguard. En avant, Francie! Vorwarts!"
She bowed to him, and passed on in her grave and stately manner: more calmly observant, demurer eyes were not in the Park.
He ran the gauntlet of the whole family, and at last encountered the mamma, who brought up the rear with the youngest of her daughters. Lady Evelyn was a tall, somewhat good-looking, elderly lady, who wore her silver-white hair in old-fashioned curls. She was an amiable but strictly matter-of-fact person, who beheld her daughters' mad humors with surprise as well as alarm. What were they forever laughing at? Besides, it was indecorous. She had not conducted herself in that manner when she lived in her father's home.
Lady Evelyn, who was vaguely aware that Brand knew the Linds, repeated her daughter's information about the proposed visit, and said that if Miss Lind would come and spend the evening with them, she hoped Mr. Brand would come too.
"These girls do tease dreadfully, I know," said their mamma; "but perhaps they will behave a little better before a stranger."