"I don't know; I always feel as if he owed me a grudge, and men have
so many ways of being spiteful. You must acknowledge that if he had
not met you I should not have had dear Lady Cumnor so angry with me."
"She only wanted to warn you about Cynthia. Mamma has always been
very particular about her own daughters. She has been very severe on
the least approach to flirting, and Mary will be like her!"
"But Cynthia will flirt, and I can't help it. She is not noisy, or
giggling; she is always a lady--that everybody must own. But she
has a way of attracting men, she must have inherited from me, I
think." And here she smiled faintly, and would not have rejected a
confirmatory compliment, but none came. "However, I will speak to
her; I will get to the bottom of the whole affair. Pray tell Lady
Cumnor that it has so fluttered me the way she spoke, about my dress
and all. And it only cost five guineas after all, reduced from
eight!"
"Well, never mind now. You are looking very much flushed; quite
feverish! I left you too long in mamma's hot room. But do you know
she is so much pleased to have you here?" And so Lady Cumnor really
was, in spite of the continual lectures which she gave "Clare," and
which poor Mrs. Gibson turned under as helplessly as the typical
worm. Still it was something to have a countess to scold her; and
that pleasure would endure when the worry was past. And then Lady
Harriet petted her more than usual to make up for what she had to go
through in the convalescent's room; and Lady Cuxhaven talked sense to
her, with dashes of science and deep thought intermixed, which was
very flattering, although generally unintelligible; and Lord Cumnor,
good-natured, good-tempered, kind, and liberal, was full of gratitude
to her for her kindness in coming to see Lady Cumnor, and his
gratitude took the tangible shape of a haunch of venison, to say
nothing of lesser game. When she looked back upon her visit, as she
drove home in the solitary grandeur of the Towers' carriage, there
had been but one great enduring rub--Lady Cumnor's crossness--and she
chose to consider Cynthia as the cause of that, instead of seeing the
truth, which had been so often set before her by the members of her
ladyship's family, that it took its origin in her state of health.
Mrs. Gibson did not exactly mean to visit this one discomfort upon
Cynthia, nor did she quite mean to upbraid her daughter for conduct
as yet unexplained, and which might have some justification; but,
finding her quietly sitting in the drawing-room, she sate down
despondingly in her own little easy chair, and in reply to Cynthia's
quick pleasant greeting of--