Before Mrs. Browne could reply, Augusta asked: "What of Bessie? Will she not be very lonely without you?"
"Nasty cat! She is as jealous as she can be, and I will stay to spite her," Daisy thought, but she said: "Oh, yes, I ought to go home to Bessie, though she would bid me stay now that I am here; she is so unselfish, and I shall never come again. Her cousin's family in London will take her directly home, so she will not be alone. Poor Bessie!"
Daisy knew that the London family would not take Bessie to their home, but it answered her purpose to say so, and seemed some excuse for her remaining, as she finally decided to do, greatly to Allen's delight and somewhat to Mrs. Browne's surprise. Yet the glamour of Daisy's beauty, and style, and position was over her still, and she was not sorry to show her off to the people in the hotel, and anticipated in no small degree what would be said by her friends at home when she showed them a live lord and an English lady like Daisy. She was going to Ridgeville in a day or two, but Daisy's mourning must first be bought, and in the excitement of shopping, and trying on dresses and bonnets, and deciding which shape was the most becoming, Daisy came near forgetting "poor, dear, dead Archie," of whom she talked so pathetically when she spoke of him at all.
"Don't, I beg of you, think that I ever for a moment forget my loss," she said to Mrs. Browne, when she had with a hand-glass studied the hang of her crape vail for at least fifteen minutes. "It hurts me to speak of him, but there is a moan in my heart for him all the time."
And Mrs. Browne believed her, and thought she was bearing it bravely, and paid all the bills, and thought her the most beautiful creature in her weeds that she had ever seen. And truly she was a lovely little widow, with just enough pallor in her face to be interesting and show that her sorrow had robbed her of some of her roses, or, as Lord Hardy suspected, that she had purposely omitted the roses, when making her toilet, for the sake of effect.
Lord Hardy knew the lady perfectly, and knew there was not a real thing about her except, indeed, her hair, which was wavy and abundant still, and of which she was very proud, often allowing it to fall on her neck, and always arranging it in the most negligent and girlish manner. Once her complexion had been her own, but the life she had led was not conducive to bloom, and much of her bright color and the pearly tint of her skin was now the work of art, so skillfully done, however, that few could detect it. Mrs. Browne did not. She never suspected anything, and took Daisy for what she seemed, and was glad Allen was so fond of her as in her society he was safe, she said, "and could not help getting kind of refined and cultivated up."