She was pleased with a huge French mirror over the
marble mantle; she liked the chandeliers, which were in the worst
possible taste; all this we could tell by her expressive gestures;
and she finally seized the old gentleman by the lapels of his coat
and danced him breathlessly from the fireplace to the windows and
back again, while the elder girl clapped her hands and laughed.
"Isn't she lovely?" sighed Francesca, a little covetously, although
she is something of a beauty herself.
"I am sorry that her name is Bridget," said Mr. Beresford.
"For shame!" I cried indignantly. "It is Norah, or Veronica, or
Geraldine, or Patricia; yes, it is Patricia, - I know it as well as
if I had been at the christening. - Dawson, take the tea-things,
please; and do you know the name of the gentleman who has bought the
house on the opposite side?"
"It is Lord Brighton, miss." (You would never believe it, but we
find the name is spelled Brighthelmston.) "He hasn't bought the
'ouse; he has taken it for a week, and is giving a ball there on the
Tuesday evening. He has four daughters, miss, and two h'orphan
nieces that generally spends the season with 'im. It's the youngest
daughter he is bringing out, that lively one you saw cutting about
just now. They 'ave no ballroom, I expect, in their town 'ouse,
which accounts for their renting one for this occasion. They
stopped a month in this 'otel last year, so I have the honour of
m'luds acquaintance."
"Lady Brighthelmston is not living, I should judge," remarked
Salemina, in the tone of one who thinks it hardly worth while to
ask.
"Oh, yes, miss, she's alive and 'earty; but the daughters manages
everythink, and what they down't manage the h'orphan nieces does.
The 'ouse is run for the young ladies, but m'ludanlady seems to
enjoy it."
Dovermarle Street was so interesting during the next few days that
we could scarcely bear to leave it, lest something exciting should
happen in our absence.
"A ball is so confining!" said Francesca, who had come back from the
corner of Piccadilly to watch the unloading of a huge van, and found
that it had no intention of stopping at Number Nine on the opposite
side.
First came a small army of charwomen, who scrubbed the house from
top to bottom. Then came men with canvas for floors, bronzes and
jardinieres and somebody's family portraits from an auction-room,
chairs and sofas and draperies from an upholsterer's.
The night before the event itself I announced my intention of
staying in our own drawing-room the whole of the next day. "I am
more interested in Patricia's debut," I said, "than anything else
that can possibly happen in London.
