Mab, who was so shrewd, with all her wits about her, questioned Alicia closely when they were alone together. She knew already that the visitors were not much in the good books of the mistress of the house; but, that she was a little ashamed of the feeling and anxious to have it understood that there was no reason for it. “I will not conceal from you,” Mrs. Russell Penton repeated, “that I did not wish you to meet them: not from anything wrong in them--the girl is a nice gentle little thing, I have no doubt; and the boy--I know no harm of the boy; but I should have preferred that you had not met them here.”
But this was what Mrs. Penton could not or else would not do. She said, “Because they are not in our sphere. They are very nice, I don’t doubt. They are, of course, just the same race as myself, so it is not for that; but you that have been brought up in the lap of luxury, and this girl, who probably has had the life of a nursery-maid (for the children are endless), how could you have anything to say to each other? There is too great a difference. This is what I always felt.”
“And the boy,” said Mab, in a little voice which was somewhat hypocritical, “is not he any better? Is he quite a common boy?”
“The boy is not worth considering,” said Mrs. Russell Penton. “He is a hobbledehoy, neither boy nor man, don’t you know? I don’t suppose he has had more education than his sister, and I don’t think he will amuse at all. But they are only coming for three days, and I hope you will not mind for that short time.”
“Oh, I shall not mind,” said Mab, “I like seeing people of all kinds.” And thus the conversation dropped. But it need not be said that all this was the very best introduction possible of the two young Pentons to the notice of the little heiress. She did not indeed resolve to make to Wat an offer of her hand and fortune. But the thought of the heir who was an heir no longer, and of how the mere fact of being “out of it,” while still so profoundly concerned, must work upon the mind, and all the traditional miseries of the poor gentleman took possession of her imagination. And fancy took the side of the unfortunate, as a young fancy always does. Accordingly, when the poor old broken-down fly drove up, and the portmanteaus were taken down, and the two timid young people stepped out of the moldy old carriage, Mab, though she saw the ludicrous features of the scene, felt not the least desire to laugh. She looked at them keenly, standing by, acting as audience to this little drama, and saw Ally’s anxious look at her brother as she passed into the house, and Walter’s keen consciousness of the footman’s scorn and Mrs. Penton’s toleration. He did not notice herself, and evidently thought her a person of no importance, which for the moment piqued Mab. But when he paused to let her, a little nobody, as he thought, pass before him, all her romantic sympathies came back to her mind. And so it came to pass that it was not Ally who was the most excited of the young persons thus brought together in what seemed an accidental way; nor, perhaps, could their hearts have been seen, was it she who was the most likely to have met her fate.