Meanwhile the expected guests had arrived, and Daisy heard them in the hall as they took possession of the room opposite hers. Lady Jane was very tired, and hot, and dusty, for she had come from Edinburgh that day, and she glanced around her luxurious apartment with a feeling of comfort and relief, as she issued her orders to her maid, Lydia, and talked to her husband.
"Open the little trunk, Lydia, and take out my pearl-colored grenadine; I cannot wear a heavy silk to-night; and find my Valenciennes fichu and my small diamonds, I don't suppose there is any one in particular here, unless it is Lady Oakley, and she, I presume has the room opposite this. She did, the last time we were here. John, we are really very comfortable. Mrs. Smithers knows how to keep up an attractive house, and is a charming woman, though, of course, not quite to the manner born. Was her father an iron monger, or what?"
"He was a wholesale merchant, and worth a mint of money. Why, he could buy out every McPherson and Trevellian in the United Kingdom," was John's reply; and then, with a little toss of her head, Lady Jane began her toilet, for it wanted but an hour of dinner.
"There, that will do for me; I can finish the rest myself. And now go to Blanche's room and see to her and send Neil to me," she said to Lydia, when she was nearly dressed.
Lydia obeyed, and after she had gone, Lady Jane said to her husband: "I hope Mrs. Smithers will not object to Blanche, even if she was not invited. I really could not leave her behind."
There was no reply from John, who was busy in the dressing-room, but a fresh young voice from the doorway answered her: "I think it was downright cheeky to bring her without an invitation. With her giggling, and her reelys, and her yis-es--all she can say--and her white eyebrows and tow hair, she is not very ornamental, even if she has ten thousand a year."
The speaker was Neil McPherson, the boy who on the Fourth of July had been thrashed by Grey Jerrold for his sneer at the American flag, find his comments on American ladies. He was a year older than Grey, with a dark, handsome face, a pleasant smile, and winsome ways when he chose to be agreeable. As a rule, he was very good-natured, and his manners were perfect for a boy of fifteen; but there was in all he did or said an air of superiority, as if he felt himself quite above the majority of his companions, which, indeed, was the fact. Trained by his mother from infancy to consider the Trevellian blood the best in England outside the pale of royalty, and the McPherson blood the best outside the peerage, it was not strange that his good qualities--and he had many--should be warped, and dwarfed, and overshadowed by an indomitable pride and supreme selfishness, which would prompt him at any time to sacrifice his best friend in behalf of his own interest. And yet Neil was generally a favorite, for he was frank, and obliging, and good-humored, and very gentlemanly in his manner, and quick to render the little attentions so gratifying to the ladies, by whom he was held in high esteem as a pattern boy. He was the idol of his mother, who saw no fault in him whatever, and who had commenced already to plan for him a brilliant marriage, or at least a marriage of money, for her own income was not large, and that of her husband smaller still.