Daisy wrote to Bessie, telling her how prostrated with grief she was, and that she should have taken the first ship home if the Rossiter-Brownes had not insisted that she should stay and see a little of America.
"But it will not be for long," she wrote. "I shall soon return, and I send you thirty pounds, absolutely my own. This will last till I am with you, and then we will contrive together how to live respectably and happily."
The day after the letter was sent, the Browne party started for Ridgeville, reaching the Allington station about three in the afternoon of a lovely July day.
The news of their coming had preceded them, and the Ridge House, which was a large, imposing mansion, had for days been the scene of much bustle and excitement, for it was known that an Irish lord was to accompany the family, and an English lady, who, if not titled, was connected with some of the best families in England.
There was a great deal of talk and gossip among the neighbors, who had known the Rossiter-Brownes with out an "e" or a hyphen, when he was simply Ike and she was Angeline, Miss Lucy Grey's hired girl. But they were rich people now; they owned the finest house in Ridgeville, and every room was covered with what Mrs. Browne called a Mocha carpet, and they kept negroes instead of white servants, and the barn was full of boxes of all sizes, which had arrived, from time to time, bearing foreign marks upon them, thus impressing the lower class with a species of awe as they thought how far they had come, and how much they had probably cost.
Then, the family had traveled and consorted with nobility, and seen the Queen and the Pope, and in consequence of all this there was quite a crowd of people at the station when the New York express stopped then and deposited upon the platform twelve trunks, three hat boxes, an English terrier, a Dongola cat, with innumeral satchels and port-manteaus, and seven people--Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, Augusta Browne, Allen Browne, Daisy McPherson, a French maid, and Lord Hardy. He, plainly dressed in a gray suit, which did not fit him at all, but with a decidedly aristocratic look upon his face as he glanced curiously at the crowd gathering around the Brownes, and greeting them with noisy demonstrations: Daisy, in deep black, with her vail thrown back from her lovely lace and a gleam of ridicule and contempt in her blue eyes as they flashed upon Lord Hardy as if for sympathy; the French maid, in white apron and cap, tired, homesick and bewildered with Mrs. Browne's repeated calls to know if she was sure she had all the bags, and shawls, and fans, and umbrellas, and the shrill voice of a little boy who shouted to her as the train moved off, "I say, hain't you left your bunnet in the cars; 'tain't on your head;" Allen, stunning in his long, light overcoat, tight pants, pointed shoes, cane, and eye-glasses, which he found very necessary as he pointed out his luggage, and in reply to the baggage-master's hearty "How are you, my boy?" drawled out, "Quite well--thanks--but awful tired, you know;" Augusta, in a Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a narrow lane.