"'Tis all very fine for you, my love, with a new gown fresh on to-day! Will you just take a look at my petticoat, though?"
Together they descended the stairs, and went into the drawing-room.
A dainty, very diminutive little lady arose from a chair at their entry, and came forward with outstretched hands, and such a fascinating smile that Miss Betty's ill-humour vanished, and she responded to her visitor's deep curtsy with one of her best jerky dips.
"I am vastly delighted to welcome you, madam," she said primly. "'Tis good in you to come this long way to see us."
She drew a chair forward for my lady, and presented her niece. Lady O'Hara gave the girl a swift, scrutinising glance, and curtsied again.
"'Tis a great pleasure to me to meet you at last, Miss Beauleigh," she smiled. "My husband has told me so much of you, I declare I was all agog to meet you!"
Diana warmed instantly to the little lady's charm.
"Indeed, madam, we, too, have heard much of you from Sir Miles. _We_ have wanted to meet _you_!"
Lady O'Hara seated herself and nodded briskly.
"I expect he told you some dreadful tales of me," she said happily. "I must ask your pardon for not having visited you before, but, as I daresay you know, I have been away, and, gracious me, when I returned everything seemed topsy-turvy!" She laughed across at Miss Betty. "I promise you I have had my hands full putting things to rights, Miss Beauleigh!"
Miss Betty drew her chair closer, and in a minute they were deep in truly feminine conversation: the prodigious extravagance of the servants; the helplessness of men-folk when left to themselves, and then London, its shops, its parks, the newest play.
Lady O'Hara was begged to take a dish of Miss Betty's precious Bohea--a very high honour indeed--and when Mr. Beauleigh came into the room he found his sister and daughter seated on either side of a pretty, animated little lady whom he had never before seen, talking hard, and partaking of tay and angel cakes. Whereupon he retired hastily and shut himself up in his library.
Lady O'Hara looked across at her sleeping husband with no little severity in her glance. He was stretched in a chair beneath a giant oak, and she was busied with some needlework a few paces from him. O'Hara's eyes were shut and his mouth open. My lady frowned and coughed. She rasped her throat quite considerably, but it was not without effect; her spouse shut his mouth and opened one lazy eyelid. Immediately my lady assumed an air of gentle mournfulness, and the eye regarding her twinkled a little, threatening to close. Molly looked reproachful, and began to speak in an aggrieved tone: