“Indeed, they are not!” cried Bessie, and rose and ran to the looking-glass.

Mrs. Betts smiled at the effect of her tactics, and persevered:  “Let me see, miss:  because if it is plain you have been fretting, you had better make an excuse and stop up stairs.  But the master will be vexed.”  Bessie turned and submitted her countenance to inspection.  “There was never a complexion yet that was improved by fretting,” was the waiting-woman’s severe insinuation.  “You must wait five minutes, and let the air from the window blow on you.  Really, miss, you are too old to cry.”

Bessie offered no rejoinder; she was ashamed.  The imperative necessity of controlling the tender emotions had been sternly inculcated by Madame Fournier.  “Now shall I do?” she humbly asked, feeling the temperature of her cheeks with her cool hands.

Mrs. Betts judiciously hesitated, then, speaking in a milder voice, said, “Yes—­perhaps it would not be noticed.  But tears was the very mischief for eyes—­that Miss Fairfax might take her word for.  And it was old Lady Angleby and her niece, one of the Miss Burleighs, who were down stairs.”

Bessie blushed consciously, appealed to the looking-glass again, adjusted her mind to her duty, and descended to the octagon parlor.  The rose was no worse for the shower.  Mr. Fairfax was there, standing with his back to the fireplace, and lending his ears to an argument that was being slowly enunciated by the noble matron who filled his chair.  A younger lady, yet not very young, who was seated languidly with her back to the light, acknowledged Bessie’s entrance with a smile that invited her approach.  “I think,” she said, “you know my brother Cecil?” and so they were introduced.

For several minutes yet Lady Angleby’s eloquence oozed on (her theme was female emancipation), the squire listening with an inscrutable countenance.  “Now, I hope you feel convinced,” was her triumphant conclusion.  Mr. Fairfax did not say whether he was convinced or not.  He seemed to observe that Elizabeth had come in, and begged to present his granddaughter to her ladyship.  Elizabeth made her pretty curtsey, and was received with condescension, and felt, on a sudden, a most unmannerly inclination to laugh, which she dissembled under a girlish animation and alacrity in talk.  The squire was pleased that she manifested none of the stupid shyness of new young-ladyhood, though in the presence of one of the most formidable of county magnates.  Elizabeth did not know that Lady Angleby was formidable, but she saw that she was immense, and her sense of humor was stirred by the instant perception that her self-consequence was as enormous as her bulk.  But Miss Burleigh experienced a thrill of alarm.  The possibility of being made fun of by a little simple girl had never suggested itself to the mind of her august relative, but there was always the risk that her native shrewdness might wake up some day from the long torpor induced by the