Kitabı oku: «Three Girls from School», sayfa 9
Chapter Sixteen
A Delicious Dinner
After a time Annie Brooke and Mabel Lushington joined Lady Lushington in their smart dresses. Mabel looked most imposing in her pretty pink silk, and no one could look fresher and more charming than Annie in the white lace and muslin which fitted her trim little figure so nicely.
Lady Lushington was standing very much in the same position in which she had been when Priscilla left her. She turned now as the two girls entered. There was a frown between her brows, and she scarcely glanced at either of them.
“Come, come,” she said crossly, “how much longer must I be kept waiting? We will go down in the lift, Mabel; you lead the way.”
Mabel immediately went first, Lady Lushington followed, and Annie brought up the rear. They entered a large lift, and presently found themselves on the ground-floor of the great hotel. In a very short time they were in the restaurant, which was quite the most brilliant and dazzling place Annie Brooke had ever seen. It seemed to be almost filled with gay ladies all in full evening-dress, and gentlemen in immaculate white shirt-fronts, white ties, and dinner-jackets. There were waiters rushing about here, there, and everywhere; and the tables, covered with their snowy napery, were further adorned with dazzlingly bright glass and silver; and, to add magic to the general effect, a little electric lamp with a silk shade over it stood in the centre of each table. There were flowers, also, in abundance. In short, the whole place seemed to Annie to be a sort of fairyland.
A few people glanced up from their own tables when Lady Lushington, accompanied by the two girls, crossed the huge room to the table set aside for her party. She sat down, and Mabel and Annie found places at each side of her. A menu was immediately presented to her by a most gentlemanly man whom Annie thought perfectly fascinating in appearance, but who only turned out to be the head-waiter. Lady Lushington ordered certain dishes and two or three kinds of wine, and the meal began.
Annie was both hungry and agitated; Mabel was somewhat indifferent. Lady Lushington ate steadily and with considerable appetite, but all the time wearing that slight frown of disapproval on her forehead. Annie glanced at her, and made up her mind that Lady Lushington was a very grand person indeed; that she (Annie), in spite of all her temerity, was going to be a little bit afraid of her; and that, of course, the reason for the great lady’s present discontent was the fact of Priscilla’s outrageous conduct.
The three ladies hardly spoke at all, Mabel having quite sufficient tact to respect her aunt’s present mood. But as the dinner came to an end, concluding with the most delicious ice Annie had ever tasted in all her life, she could not help bending forward and saying in a low tone to Mabel:
“What a great pity it is that our Priscie is such a fool!”
Low as her tone was, it reached lady Lushington’s ears, who immediately turned and said in a snappish voice:
“Whom do you mean by our Priscie, Miss Brooke?”
“Why, Priscilla Weir, of course,” answered Annie, colouring as she spoke, and looking particularly sweet and innocent.
“And why did you call her a fool?” was Lady Lushington’s next remark.
“Oh,” said Annie – “oh” – Mabel longed to kick Annie’s foot, but could not manage to reach it. Annie plunged desperately into hot water. “Oh,” she added, “Priscilla – oh, Priscilla is so ridiculous; she has lost this delicious dinner and – and – rejected your kindness in giving her such dainty garments. I do pity her so much, and am so sorry that your great kindness should be thrown away.”
“Then, pray,” said Lady Lushington, “keep your pity for me entirely to yourself, for I can assure you, Miss Brooke, that I do not need it. As to Miss Weir, she may or may not be a fool – I do not know her well enough to be able to give an opinion on that point – but she is at least a thorough lady.”
Annie gazed, with her coral lips slightly open.
“A thorough lady,” continued Lady Lushington, glancing with cruel eyes at the white muslin and lace frock which adorned Annie’s little person.
“Then you are not angry with her?” said Annie. “I thought, after your kindness – But of course she is going in the morning, isn’t she?”
“Miss Weir accompanies us to Interlaken,” said Lady Lushington, rising. “That is settled; and she wears her own dress, as an honest girl should. She may look peculiar; doubtless she will; but she is unaffected and has a noble way about her. Now let us change the subject – Girls, would you like to come out into the court for a few minutes to listen to the band, or are you, Miss Brooke, too tired, and would you prefer to go to bed?”
“I think I will go to bed, please,” said Annie in a small, meek, crushed sort of voice.
“Very well,” said Lady Lushington; “you are quite wise. – Mabel, take your friend to the lift and give her over to Parker’s care. – Goodnight, Miss Brooke. Remember we start very early in the morning, but Parker will wake you and bring you your coffee.”
When, ten minutes later, Mabel joined her aunt Henrietta in the court of the famous hotel, Lady Lushington turned to her.
“May I ask,” she remarked, “what earthly reason induced you to ask a commonplace person like Miss Brooke to join our expedition?”
“Oh, I thought you would like her,” said Mabel. “She – she is a great friend of mine.” Mabel spoke in considerable alarm, for if indeed Aunt Henrietta turned against Annie, she would find herself in a most serious position. Lady Lushington was silent for a minute or two; then she said:
“To be frank with you, Mabel, I don’t at the present moment like her at all. Whether I change my mind or not remains to be proved. Priscilla Weir is a fine creature, and worth twenty of that blue-eyed doll; but I suppose, as they have both come, we must put up with Miss Brooke for a short time. I may as well tell you frankly, however, Mabel, that I shall send her back to England, if she does not please me very much better than she has done on this first evening, at the first possible opportunity.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ingratiating Secretary
But Lady Lushington, when she took a prejudice against Annie Brooke, reckoned without her host. Annie was far too clever to allow this state of things to continue long.
The next day the three girls and Lady Lushington started en route for Interlaken. There they put up at one of the most fashionable hotels, and there Annie began to find her feet and gradually to undermine Lady Lushington’s prejudice against her. Even if Mabel had not whispered the disconcerting fact to her that she had not made a good, impression on her aunt, Annie was far too sharp not to discover it for herself when Mabel said to her on that first night in the Grand Hotel in Paris, “I must tell you the truth, Annie; you are a failure so far; you have not pleased Aunt Henrietta, and Priscie has. I don’t know what I shall do if you leave me, but I know Aunt Hennie will send you back pretty sharp to England if you don’t alter your tactics, and how I am ever to meet all that lies before me if this happens is more than I can fathom.”
Annie had assured her friend that she need not be the least afraid, and, knowing the truth, or part of the truth, took her measures accordingly.
They had not been settled at the Belle Vue Hotel, Interlaken, more than two days before Lady Lushington, who was an exceedingly selfish, worldly woman, although quite kind-hearted, began to alter her mind with regard to both Annie Brooke and Priscilla Weir.
Priscilla, notwithstanding her fine and impressive eyes, her honest manner, and her earnest wish to make herself pleasant, looked undoubtedly gauche in the old-fashioned garments which were mostly made for her by poor Susan Martin. Lady Lushington found that though people remarked on Priscilla when she walked with the others in the fashionable part of the town or sat with them when they listened to the band or took her place in the salle-à-manger by their sides, yet those glances were by no means ones of admiration. The girl looked oppressed by a certain care, and dowdy beyond all words. Lady Lushington liked her, and yet she did not like her. She felt, however, bound to keep to her compact – to make the best of poor Priscilla. Accordingly, she told her friends that Priscilla Weir was a genius, and a little quaint with regard to her clothes, and that, in consequence, she had to put up with her peculiar dress.
“But she is such an honest good creature,” said Lady Lushington in conclusion, “that I am quite glad to have her as a companion for Mabel.”
Now the people to whom Lady Lushington gave this confidence were by no means interested in Priscilla’s predilection for quaint clothes. They pronounced her an oddity, and left her to the fate of all oddities – namely, to herself. Annie, on the contrary, who made the best of everything, and who looked quite ravishingly pretty in the smart frocks which Parker, by Lady Lushington’s desire, supplied her with, came in for that measure of praise which was denied to poor Priscie. Annie looked very modest, too, and had such charming, unaffected, ingenuous blue eyes, the blue eyes almost of a baby.
Lady Lushington found her first prejudices melting out of sight as she watched Annie’s grace and noticed her apparent unselfishness.
It was Annie’s cue to be unselfish during these days, and Lady Lushington began to form really golden opinions with regard to her character. She had been very nice on the journey, taking the most uncomfortable seat and thinking of every one’s comfort except her own. She had been delightful when they reached Interlaken, putting up with a very small and hot bedroom almost in the roof of the hotel. And now she began to make herself useful to Lady Lushington.
This great lady had a vast amount of voluminous correspondence. She liked writing to her friends in her own illegible hand, but she hated writing business letters. Now Annie wrote an exceedingly neat and legible hand, and when she offered herself as Lady Lushington’s amanuensis, making the request in the prettiest voice imaginable, and looking so eagerly desirous to help the good woman, Mabel’s aunt felt her last prejudice against Annie Brooke melting out of sight.
“Really, my dear,” she said, “you are good-natured. It would be a comfort to dictate my letters to you, but I am stupid about business letters. You do not mind if I dictate them very slowly?”
“Oh no,” said Annie, “by no means; and I should so love to write them for you. You do such a great deal for poor little me that if there is any small way in which I can help you I shall be more than glad. Dear Lady Lushington, you don’t know how I feel your kindness.”
“You are very good to say so, Miss Brooke. I have invited you here because you are Mabel’s friend.”
“Sweet Mabel!” murmured Annie; “her very greatest friend. But now, may I help you?”
“Well, bring those letters over here – that pile on the table. We may as well get through them.”
Annie immediately found note-paper, blotting-paper, pens and ink, also a supply of foreign stamps and post-cards. She laid the letters in a pile on Lady Lushington’s lap.
“Now,” she said, “if you will read them aloud to me and tell me what to say, I will write as slowly as ever you like. You can lean back in your comfortable chair; we will get through them as quickly as possible.”
This conversation took place on the first day when Annie wrote letters to Lady Lushington’s dictation. Soon the thing became a habit, and Lady Lushington secured the services of Miss Brooke for a couple of hours daily. She quite enjoyed it. It was so much less trouble, sitting lazily in her chair and getting that smart, pretty little thing to do the toilsome work for her. She felt that Annie was assuredly pretty, and much more interesting than poor Priscilla.
At last, on a day when the ladies had been at Interlaken for over a week, and were meaning to move on to Zermatt, Lady Lushington opened a letter, the contents of which caused her face to flush and her eyes to blaze with annoyance.
“Really,” she said, “this is too bad; this is simply abominable!”
“What is the matter?” asked Annie.
She had guessed, however, what the matter was, and her heart beat as she made the remark, for that morning she had seen, lying on the breakfast-table amongst a pile of letters directed to Lady Lushington, one in the well-known writing of Mrs Priestley; and if Annie had any doubt on that point, the dressmaker’s address was printed on the flap of the envelope. Her innocent eyes, however, never looked more innocent as she glanced up now from the blank sheet of paper on which she was about to write.
“Of course you know nothing about it, child,” said Lady Lushington, “but it is beyond belief; Mabel’s extravagance exceeds all bounds; I will not permit it for a single moment.”
“Mabel’s extravagance?” said Annie, looking surprised. “But surely dear Mabel is not extravagant. I have never, never noticed it; I assure you I haven’t.”
“Then what do you say to this?” said Lady Lushington. “That odious woman Priestley sends me a bill for one term’s clothing; total amount seventy pounds!”
“Seventy pounds,” said Annie, “for Mabel’s dress?” She pretended to look shocked. “It is impossible,” she said slowly. “There must be a mistake.”
“Of course there is a mistake. That abominable woman thinks that I am so rich that I don’t mind paying any amount. But she will learn that I am not to be imposed upon.”
“What do you think you will say to her?” asked Annie.
“I am sure I don’t know. I had best speak to Mabel herself.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Annie. “May gets so confused; dear May has no head for business; she won’t have the slightest idea what dress she did get. I know there was that lovely, expensive white satin for the school dance, and that beautiful dress of crêpe-de-Chine with pearly trimmings which she wore on the day of the break-up – the day when she received her great honour, her prize for literature; and there was that pale-blue evening-dress of hers, and the rose-coloured silk.”
“But I don’t remember those dresses at all. Where are they now?”
“I dare say she has left them at school,” said Annie.
“Left them at school?”
“She would probably not think them fine enough for you.”
“What absurdity! And even if she did get such uncalled-for, such unsuitable dresses, the sum total from a country dressmaker would not amount to seventy pounds.”
“Well, I tell you what I would do if I were you,” said Annie. “If you will let me, I will write in your name for the items. Mrs Priestley has only sent you ‘To account rendered,’ has she not?”
“That is a good idea,” said Lady Lushington. “I must speak to Mabel about her frocks when she appears. As a matter of fact, I do not mind what I spend on her now that she has come out, or partly come out, for of course she won’t be really introduced into society until she is presented next year. But seventy pounds for one schoolgirl’s wardrobe for a single term is too much.”
“Then I may write?” said Annie, her hand trembling a little.
“Certainly. Tell the woman to send all items at once here. Really, this has worried me.”
Lady Lushington did not notice that, notwithstanding all Annie’s apparent coolness, there were additional spots of colour on her cheeks, and that her hand shook a little as she penned the necessary words. Suppose the majestic Mrs Priestley recognised her handwriting! There was no help for it now, however, and any delay in grappling with the evil hour was welcome.
The letter was written and laid with several others on the table. Lady Lushington remarked after a minute’s pause:
“I may as well confide in you, Miss Brooke, that nothing ever astonished me more than Mabel’s success in gaining that literature prize; for you know, my dear, between you and me, she is not at all clever.”
“Oh, how you mistake her!” said Annie, with enthusiasm. “Dear Mabel does not care to talk about her deepest feelings or about those magnificent thoughts which visit her mind.”
“She has no thoughts, my dear, except the silliest,” said Mabel’s aunt, with a laugh.
“Oh, how you wrong her! Why, she is a poetess.”
“A what?” said Lady Lushington.
“She writes poems.”
“Nonsense! I don’t believe you.”
“I can show them to you.”
“Pray do not; I would not read them for the world. I class all rhymes as jingles. I detest them. Even Will Shakespeare could never gain my attention for more than half-a-minute.”
“Nevertheless, Mabel is clever, and her prize essay on ‘Idealism’ was undoubtedly the best in the school.”
“Yes? Wonders will never cease,” remarked Lady Lushington; “but, to tell you the truth, I was more annoyed than pleased when she got the prize. I did not want her to leave school for a year, and I only made that rash promise believing it to be quite impossible for me to fulfil. However, now I must make the best of it; and as, thank goodness! she does not pose as a genius, and is a fine, handsome girl, I have no doubt I shall get her married before long.”
“Oh, Lady Lushington! Could you bear to part with her?”
“Indeed I could, my dear, to a good husband. I mean by that a man in a high position in society.”
Annie was silent, looking prettily down. Lady Lushington glanced at her and noticed the charming contour of her face.
“If only her eyelashes were a little darker and her eyebrows more marked, she would be a sweetly pretty girl,” she thought. But the lack of distinction in her face was not apparent at that moment.
“You will have a good husband yourself some day, Miss Brooke; and if ever I can help you to bring such a desirable matter about, you may rely on me.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” said Annie. “Poor little me! But I am only an orphan with just one dear uncle and little or no money. Lady Lushington, I am so happy here, and you are so very kind to me.”
“Well, my dear, you are kind to me too. I believe we are of mutual benefit each to the other. Now, will you put on your hat and take those letters to the nearest post? You will just have time to get them in before we go downstairs to déjeuner.”
Nothing could be more welcome to Annie than this last remark, for while she was talking she was wondering much in her clever little brain if she could carry out a scheme which had darted through it. The opportunity of posting the letters gave her just the loophole she desired. Taking the pile from the table, she accordingly ran out of the room, and a few minutes later was walking down the street which led to the post-office.
On her way there she met Mabel Lushington and Priscilla. They were coming back after a long, rambling walk, and both girls were rather tired.
“Whither away, Annie?” said Mabel in her cheerful voice.
“To post some letters for your aunt, Lady Lushington.”
“But the post does not go out until the evening, and that hill is so steep and difficult to climb, and it is almost the hour for déjeuner,” objected Mabel. “Do turn back with us now, Annie; I shall so hate waiting lunch for you.”
“Oh, give me the letters if you like,” said Priscilla; “I will run down the hill in no time, and come back again as quickly. I do not mind climbing hills in the least.”
“They exhaust me frightfully,” said Mabel; “and I notice, too, that Annie gets a little out of breath when she walks up these impossible mountains too fast. That is a good idea, really. Give Priscie the letters, Annie, and come home with me; I want to talk to you.”
“No, I can’t,” said Annie. “I must post them myself; they are important.”
She darted away, pretending not to notice Mabel’s flushed, indignant face and Priscilla’s look of grave surprise. She reached the post-office and dropped all the letters she had written, except that one to Mrs Priestley, into the box. Mrs Priestley’s letter she kept safely in her pocket.
“This must be delayed for perhaps a couple of days,” thought Annie. “In the meantime I shall have to talk to May. What a mercy,” was her next reflection, “that I was given the writing of the letter, and also the posting of it! Oh dear, dear! I think I can almost manage anything. I am sure May ought to be obliged to me, and so ought that tiresome Priscie. I would do anything for dear old May; but as to Priscie, I get more sick of her each minute. If only Lady Lushington would send her back to England I should feel safer. She is just the sort of girl who would wind herself to a grand confession, never caring how she dragged the rest of us into the mire with her. She is just precisely that sort of detestable martyr being. But she sha’n’t spoil my fun, or May’s fun either, if we can help it.”
Annie appeared at lunch just a wee bit late, but looking remarkably pretty, and apologising in the most amiable tones for her unavoidable delay.
“I am not very good at hills,” she explained to Lady Lushington. “They always set my heart beating rather badly. But never mind; the letters are posted and off our minds.”
“One of those letters is by no means off my mind,” said Lady Lushington in a fierce tone, and glancing with reproachful eyes at Mabel. Annie bent towards her and said in a whisper (she could not be heard by Mabel and Priscilla as some servants came up at the moment to present dishes to the two young ladies): —
“Please say nothing before Priscilla, I beg of you.”
The voice was so earnest and so sympathetic, and the little face looked so appealing, that Lady Lushington patted the small white hand. Priscilla’s voice, however, was now heard:
“It was a great pity, Annie, that you did run so fast to the post and then toil up that steep hill, for I offered to go for you; and besides, the English post does not leave before five o’clock.”
Annie felt furious, but replied in her meekest voice:
“I felt responsible for dear Lady Lushington’s letters.”
Nothing more was said on the subject during lunch, and afterwards the ladies went off on a long expedition up into the mountains with some other friends whose acquaintance they had made in the hotel.
It was not until that evening, when they were going to bed, that Mabel heard a light tap at her door, and the next moment Annie, in her pretty blue dressing-gown, with her fair hair falling about her shoulders and a brush in her hand, entered.
“Have you time for a talk with poor little me, and has Priscie gone to bed?”
“Dear me! yes,” said Mabel. “Priscilla has been in bed and asleep an hour ago. Come in, Annie, of course. I am dead with sleep myself, and if Aunt Hennie knew she might be annoyed. Now, what is it you want?”
Annie took the letter addressed to Mrs Priestley out of her pocket.
“To talk to you about this,” she said, and she sat calmly down on a chair and faced her tall companion. Mabel was also in the act of brushing out her luxuriant hair, and looked as handsome a creature as could be found anywhere, in her long, flowing, white dressing-gown. When she read the address on the letter her eyes darkened and some of the colour left her cheeks.
“Are you writing to Mrs Priestley?” she said. “What about?”
“I wrote that letter to-day,” said Annie, “to Lady Lushington’s dictation. The account has come in; total amount seventy pounds. Lady Lushington is furious. I told her all the lies I could, dear Mabel, about the dresses you had never got, and in the end I managed to avert the evil day by asking Mrs Priestley to send the items. That satisfied Lady Lushington for the time. You will understand now why I could not accept Priscilla’s offer to post the letters, because I happened to have this one in my hand and did not wish it to go. It must not go for a day or two. In the meantime we must do something.”
“What – what?” said Mabel. “Oh Annie, I am so frightened! I knew quite well that you would get me into an awful scrape about this. What is to be done? Nothing will ever make Aunt Hennie believe that I spent seventy pounds on my dress during my last term at school. I know she is very generous about money, but she is also careful and particular. You will see; I know her so well, Annie; and she will just get into a real passion about this and write to Mrs Lyttelton, and Mrs Lyttelton will go to see Mrs Priestley, and – ”
“Oh, I know,” said Annie, trembling a good deal. “But that must never be allowed.”
“How are we to manage?” said Mabel. “Annie, we must do something;” and she dropped on her knees by her companion’s side and took one of her hands. “You came out here on purpose to help me,” she said. “You knew that I should get into trouble, and you said you would find a way out.”
“Am not I trying to with all my might and main?” said Annie.
“Well, but are you succeeding? I cannot see that keeping back that letter means much. Aunt Hennie will expect an answer, and – and – wire for it; she will really, if it does not come within a specified time; and she will give me such a talking to. Why, Annie, if the thing is discovered I shall be sent back to school – I know I shall – at the end of the holidays, and poor Priscie’s prospects will be ruined, and – and – you will be disgraced – ”
“We all three will be disgraced for ever and ever,” said Annie; “there is no doubt on that point. That is what makes the thing so terribly important. Something must be done, and at once – at once!”
“But, Annie, what?”
“I have a little scheme in my head; if you will keep up your courage and help me I believe we shall be successful.”
“But what is it? Oh, do tell me! Oh, I am so terrified!”
“The first thing we must be positive about is this,” said Annie: “Priscilla is to know nothing.”
“Of course not,” said Mabel. “Mabel, I do wish we could get her back to England; she is so tiresome and in the way, and I have a great fear in my head about her.”
“What is that? She is harmless enough, poor thing! Only, of course, she does look such a dowd. But, then, Aunt Henrietta has taken such a fancy to her.”
“Oh, you are absolutely quite mistaken about that. Your aunt took a fancy to her on the first night because she spoke in rather an original way and, I suppose, looked handsome, which she does occasionally; and your aunt is very easily impressed by anything that she considers rather fine. But I assure you that it is my private opinion that she is sick of Priscilla by this time, and also rather ashamed of her appearance. Priscilla has no tact whatever – simply none. When does she help your aunt? When does she do anything to oblige others? She just flops about and looks so gauche and awkward.”
“Well, poor thing! she can’t help that. With Susan Martin as her dressmaker what chance has she?”
“She is just an oddity,” said Annie; “and it is my impression that your aunt is tired of oddities. I can make her a little more tired, and I will.”
“Oh Annie! Poor Priscie! and she does enjoy the mountain air so, and is such a splendid climber. You might as well let her have her holiday out. You are so frightfully clever, Annie; you can always achieve your purpose. But I think, if I were you, I would let poor old Priscie alone.”
“I would if there were no danger,” said Annie.
“Danger – in her direction? What do you mean?”
“There is very grave danger,” said Annie – “very grave indeed. I am more afraid about Priscie than about anything else in the whole of this most unfortunate affair.”
“Annie, what do you mean?”
“She is troubled with a conscience, bless you! and that conscience is talking to her every day and every night. Why, my dear Mabel, you can see the gnawings of self-reproach in her eyes and in her horrid melancholy manner. She is always in a dream, too, and starting up and having to shake herself when one talks to her suddenly. I know well what it means; she is on the verge of a confession.”
“What?” said Mabel.
“Yes, that is the danger we have to apprehend; at least it is one of the dangers. One day, for the sake of relieving her own miserable conscience, she will go to your aunt and tell her everything. Then where shall we be?”
“But she could not be so frightfully mean; I never, never would believe it of her.”
“Mark my words,” said Annie – “people with consciences, who believe they have committed a crime or a sin, never think of anybody but themselves. The thought of relieving their own miserable natures is the only thought that occurs to them. Now, we must get hold of that conscience of Priscie’s, and if it is going to be a stumbling-block we must cart her back to England.”
“We must indeed,” said Mabel. “For all that I say I don’t believe that she could be so mean.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Annie; “I know better.” Mabel crouched on the floor by Annie’s side, her hand lying on Annie’s lap.
“You are wonderful,” she said after a pause, “quite wonderful. I can’t imagine how you think of all these things, and of course you are never wrong. Still – poor Priscie! you won’t make things very hard for her, Annie, will you?”
“I know exactly what I mean to do,” said Annie. “First of all I have to get you out of your present scrape, and then I shall go boldly to Priscie and find out her pent-up thoughts, and if they are in the direction I am fearing, I shall soon find means to protect ourselves from her and her conscience. But perhaps that is enough about her. On the present occasion we have got to think of you and Mrs Priestley.”
“Oh, indeed, yes! Oh, I am terrified!”
“Listen to me. But for my management at lunch to-day, Lady Lushington was so indignant that she would have blurted out the whole thing and asked you what you meant by running up such an outrageous bill. You would have given yourself away on the spot, for you have no presence of mind in an emergency. Now I am preparing you. Lady Lushington will speak to you to-morrow, and you are faithfully to describe the dresses that I have, told her you possess. Oh, I know you have not got them at all, but that does not matter; I will give you a list of them in the morning, and you are to hold to that list. But now, listen. This is the main point. At the same time you are to assure your aunt that Mrs Priestley has made a mistake and put down some one else’s dresses to you, for you are positive your bill is nearer forty pounds than seventy.”
