People always are; aren't they?"
"Perhaps ladies are."
"We were. But all that about the carriages, Mr. Morton, wasn't my
doing. Mamma had been talking to me so much that I didn't know
whether I was on my head or my heels. It was very good of you to
come and meet us, and I ought to have been more gracious." In this
way she made her peace, and as she was quite in earnest,--doing a
portion of the hard work of her life,--she continued to smile as
sweetly as she could. Perhaps he liked it;--but any man endowed
with that power of appreciation which we call sympathy, would have
felt it to be as cold as though it had come from a figure on a
glass window.
The dinner was announced. Mr. Morton was honoured with the hand of
Lady Augustus. The Senator handed the old lady into the dining-room
and Mr. Mainwaring the younger lady,--so that Arabella was sitting
next to her lover. It had all been planned by Morton and acceded to
by his grandmother. Mr. Gotobed throughout the dinner had the best
of the conversation, though Lady Augustus had power enough to snub
him on more than one occasion. "Suppose we were to allow at once,"
she said, "that everything is better in the United States than
anywhere else, shouldn't we get along easier?"
"I don't know that getting along easy is what we have particularly
got in view," said Mr.
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