Mrs
Jamieson stood up, giving us each a torpid smile of welcome, and
looking helplessly beyond us at Mr Mulliner, as if she hoped he
would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never could. I
suppose he thought we could find our way to the circle round the
fire, which reminded me of Stonehenge, I don't know why. Lady
Glenmire came to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow or other,
we found ourselves for the first time placed agreeably, and not
formally, in Mrs Jamieson's house. Lady Glenmire, now we had time
to look at her, proved to be a bright little woman of middle age,
who had been very pretty in the days of her youth, and who was even
yet very pleasant-looking. I saw Miss Pole appraising her dress in
the first five minutes, and I take her word when she said the next
day -
"My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on--
lace and all."
It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be poor, and partly
reconciled us to the fact that her husband had never sat in the
House of Lords; which, when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of
swindling us out of our prospects on false pretences; a sort of "A
Lord and No Lord" business.
We were all very silent at first. We were thinking what we could
talk about, that should be high enough to interest My Lady.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142