You will find that she won't
mount to the fifth floor to see how the servants are housed, - not
she, careless, pretty creature; she will go straight to the drawing-
room."
And so she did; and at the same instant a still younger and prettier
creature drove up in a hansom, and was out of it almost before the
admiring cabby could stop his horse or reach down for his fare. She
flew up the stairway and danced into the drawing-room like a young
whirlwind; flung open doors, pulled up blinds with a jerk, letting
in the sunlight everywhere, and tiptoed to and fro over the dusty
floors, holding up her muslin flounces daintily.
"This must be the daughter of his first marriage," I remarked.
"Who will not get on with the young stepmother," finished Mr.
Beresford.
"It is his youngest daughter," corrected Salemina, - "the youngest
daughter of his only wife, and the image of her deceased mother, who
was, in her time, the belle of Dublin."
She might well have been that, we all agreed; for this young beauty
was quite the Irish type, such black hair, grey-blue eyes, and
wonderful lashes, and such a merry, arch, winsome face, that one
loved her on the instant.
