“By the way, Neil, why have you never told me of that pretty little wild blossom hidden away in Wales?”

“Whom do you mean?” Neil asked savagely; and Jack replied: 

“I mean your cousin Bessie.  I stumbled upon her and her father in the park this afternoon, and told them who some of the people were.  I was standing by Miss McPherson’s chair when you drove by—­”

“And she made that rush at Neil as if she had been a mad thing; it was too absurd!” Blanche chimed in, and turning to Lady Jane, she described the scene with great minuteness of detail.  “It was really too ridiculous, to see her standing there waving her handkerchief with her head bare to show her abundant hair, and that old linen gown, which must have seen some years’ service.  I was intensely mortified to have our friends see her, and so was Neil.”

“I beg your pardon, I was not mortified at all; I liked it, and I do not care who saw her,” Neil said, rousing up in defense of Bessie, and lying easily and fluently, for Blanche’s cruel remarks made him very angry.

“Oh, you did like it, then?  Your face told a different story,” Blanche retorted; while Lady Jane, forgetting her dignity, commenced a tirade against both Bessie and her mother, the latter of whom she cordially despised.  Of the girl she knew nothing, she said, but it was fair to suppose she was like her mother, and she did not blame Blanche for feeling shocked at such unmaidenly advances in public to a young man.

Had Neil been a few years younger he would have called his mother a fool, as he had done more than once in his boyhood; but he could not do that now, and turning to Jack, who had been quietly eating his dinner, he said: 

“Jack, what did you think of Bessie?  Is she a bold hussy, and ought Blanche to smash her red parasol because Bessie’s eyes have rested upon it?”

Thus appealed to, Jack looked up, with an amused smile on his face, and said: 

“I don’t quite believe Bessie’s eyes did rest on Blanche’s parasol.  I thought they were on you, and envied you as a lucky dog.  Seriously, though,” he continued, as he saw the thunderous gleam in Neil’s eyes, and the look of triumph in Blanche’s, “it did not occur to me that there was anything bold or unmaidenly in what the young lady did, and I never saw a more beautiful tableau than she made, standing there in the sunshine, with her bright, wavy hair, and her lovely, eager face.  She is very beautiful, and I am so glad I have seen her.  They are stopping at—­” He hesitated, and looked at Neil, who, grateful for his defense of Bessie, unhesitatingly replied: 

“No. ——­ Abingdon road, near High street”

“Thank you,” Jack said, making a mental memorandum of the place, with a view to call, even if Bessie had said he better not.

After this little skirmish the dinner proceeded in peace, so far as Bessie was concerned, for Jack Trevellian was a kind of oracle, whose verdict could raise one to the pinnacle of public opinion, or cast him down to the depths, and if he said Bessie was not bold, nor brazen-faced, then she was not, though Lady Jane and Blanche disliked her just the same.