"Very ill-mannered and impertinent I call it! I hope you gave them a good scolding?"

"I did not," said Pixie calmly. "I don't like scolding meself, and it makes me worse. I merely remarked that it was a pity, as I'd have to sew them back again instead of playing games. 'Twas dull work watching me sew, and I didn't disturb myself with hurrying. Ye couldn't bribe them within yards of me hat this last week!"

"Humph! When I was a child I was whipped when I did wrong, and that was the end of it. But things have changed since then, and time will prove which was the best system. Another cup of tea, Miss Bridgie? I hope you have good news of your sister and the little boy?"

"Yes, thank you, Miss Munns. They are both well, and we are hoping to see them quite soon. They come up to their town house at the beginning of May, and we expect to have quite a gay time. Esmeralda is bringing a house-party of old Irish friends with her, and it will be delightful to meet again. She always loved entertaining, and was clever in devising novelties, and now that she has plenty of money she can do as she likes without thinking of the cost. You must get your fineries ready, Sylvia.

There will be lots of invitations for you next month."

Sylvia's smile was less whole-hearted than it would have been if one sentence had been omitted from Bridgie's announcement. "Old friends from Ireland" would of a surety include Miss Mollie Burrell, and Esmeralda would see that Jack made the most of his opportunity. It would not be exactly pleasure to accept invitations for the sake of seeing other people flirting together, while she herself sat alone in a corner.

"I shan't go!" she told herself. "If she asks me I shall refuse. I don't care to be patronised at Park Lane or anywhere else. I'd rather stay at home and play cribbage in Rutland Road." But all the same in the depths of her heart she knew well that when the time came she would not have enough resolution to say no. The temptation to obtain a glimpse of the fashionable world of which she had read so much and seen too little would be too great to be resisted; she would go even if it were to have her heart stabbed with a fresh pain, and to come home to weep herself to sleep!

"My dear, your sister will have plenty of friends to ask without thinking of Sylvia. She won't find it plain sailing looking after a big house like that. I should advise her to engage a housekeeper if she doesn't want to be cheated right and left. I know what servants are when the mistress is never in the kitchen to look after the sc.r.a.ps. I daresay I might be able to help her to find a suitable woman in connection with our different agencies. I'll inquire for you if you think she would like it."

"Dear Miss Munns, how kind of you! I'll write to Esmeralda at once, and I daresay she would be most grateful. You make me quite ashamed of myself when I think of all the work you do, and how lazy and useless I am in comparison!" cried Bridgie earnestly. Her grey eyes were fixed on Miss Munns's face with the sweetest, most unaffected admiration, and Sylvia looked at them both and thought many thoughts.

Miss Munns did indeed give both time and strength to charitable work, and withal a generous share of her small income, but her interest was of the head, not of the heart, and she was sublimely ignorant of her failure to help or comfort. Bridgie thought she was not helping at all, and was ashamed of herself because she was on no committees, and knew nothing of authorised agencies. Her ignorance was so sweet that it would be a sin to enlighten it, but there was something in Sylvia's expression which aroused her friend's curiosity.

"What are you thinking of, Sylvia?" she asked. "Something nice?"

"Very nice!" said Sylvia, smiling. She had just recalled a quotation which seemed as though it might have been written to describe Bridgie O'Shaughnessy--

"Sweet souls without reproach or blot, Who do G.o.d's will and know it not!"

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A LUNCHEON BASKET.

Esmeralda announced her arrival in town on the first of May, a week in advance of her house-party, so that she might have leisure to visit her brothers and sisters, and put the final touches to her own preparations.

She did not mention the hour of her arrival, but this was easily calculated, and at home in Rutland Road, Bridgie and Pixie held eager committee meetings as to the best method of welcome. It was decided not to go to the station, as Esmeralda did not appreciate being taken unawares, and would of a certainty be annoyed if her son and heir were beheld at a disadvantage.

"Babies are bound to be cross at the end of a journey, and his little frock would be soiled and crumpled, and she will want him to look his very, very best. No! we will go straight to Park Lane," Bridgie decided, "and arrive an hour after they are due, so that they will have had time to get tidy. The house will be upset, of course, for it has been closed for so long, and we may be able to help. I shall never forget the day we came here--all the furniture piled in the middle of the rooms, and nowhere to sit down, and nothing to eat, and my poor back aching as if 'twere broken. That's another thing I was thinking about.

We'll take lunch with us all ready prepared--a cold chicken, I think, and some fruit for dessert, and enjoy it together, we three girls, if we have to sit on the floor to eat it. How lovely it will be to meet again! It seems too good to be true."

Pixie was delighted at the idea of the luncheon basket, and when the eventful day arrived one little extra after another was added to the original list, until the weight became quite formidable, but Bridgie declared that an omnibus ran to within but a short distance of their destination, and the two girls set off in high spirits, each holding a handle of the basket, and swinging it gaily to and fro. Curious glances were cast towards it _en route_, whereat Pixie beamed with pride. It looked so like a picnic basket, with the top bulging from the sides, allowing glimpses to be seen of the fruit bags, and the white linen serviette enfolding the chicken; she was convinced that the beholders were consumed with envy and curiosity!

Arrived at Park Lane, Pixie was much concerned to realise that Esmeralda's much vaunted town residence was situated in this dull and narrow street! In vain Bridgie represented that the site was famous the world over; the little sister smiled quietly, and retained her own opinion. Bridgie as usual was making the best of the situation, but it was evident that Geoffrey's riches had been much exaggerated, since this was the best he could do for his wife.

Poor Esmeralda! how disappointed she would be! What a good thing it was that they had brought the cold chicken to take off the first edge of disappointment! The house itself looked dark and gloomy, but there were a great many windows, and looking upwards Pixie espied a glimpse of a graceful head inside the line of one of the curtains. The travellers had indeed arrived, and in another moment the three sisters would be reunited, after four months' separation.

"Ring again, darling! I can't. This basket weighs me down!" said Bridgie, straining at the heavy handle, and then came surprise number one, for even as she spoke the door was flung back, and there appeared on the threshold one immaculate-looking man-servant, while farther down the hall stood two more in att.i.tudes of attention. Three whole men to open one door! This was indeed a height of luxury to which the simple Irish mind had never soared; and where was the upset and confusion which had been expected, where the signs of recent arrival, where the smallest, most trifling evidence of confusion? The stately hall looked as if it had been undisturbed from immemorial ages, and the butler stared at the two girls and their basket with lofty disdain.

"Not at home, madam!"

Bridgie gasped, and looked blank dismay, but Pixie's shrill protest could not be restrained.

"Not at home, when I saw her meself not a second ago looking out of the window?"

What would have happened it is difficult to say, but at that moment a voice sounded from afar, an eager voice repeating two names over and over again in tones of rapturous welcome. The man stepped aside, and Bridgie pressed the basket into his hands and raced along the hall, past the staring footmen to the bend of the stairs, where Esmeralda stood with arms stretched wide. Pixie was only a step aside, and Esmeralda escorted the two girls upstairs to her own room, talking breathlessly the while.

"Of course he said I was not at home! We arrived only an hour ago, so I can hardly be ready for visitors yet, but I saw the top of your hats from the nursery windows. You must come this very minute and see the boy. He is sweeter than ever. Everyone says he is a perfect beauty.

Oh, me dears, how glad I am to see you! How sweet of you to come!"

"Of course we came; we thought perhaps we might be able to--help!"

Bridgie said, looking around the gorgeous staircase with pensive regret.

"We imagined you in such an upset, dear, with the carpets up, and the furniture covered with dust-sheets, and we thought we could dust, and put things straight as we used to do at Knock. You told us you were coming to open the house!"

"You didn't expect I was going to work myself?" drawled Esmeralda, her impetuous manner changing suddenly to one of drawling affectation. "The servants have been here for a week, getting ready for our arrival. I have nothing to look after but a few frocks, and preparations for the fray next week! Did you expect to see me in an ap.r.o.n, with a duster over my head?"

"It makes no difference to me what you wear!" said Bridgie quietly, and at that Esmeralda laughed, and became herself once more.

"It does to me, though. The best of everything is good enough for me, nothing less! You dear old thing, it's like old times to have you looking at me with that solemn face. No one keeps me in order now.

Geoff tries occasionally, but it's such an evident effort that it doesn't have much effect. It will be quite good for me to have some family snubbings once more. This is the way to the nursery--this door!

Now, my beauty, come to mother. She's brought two new aunties to see you!"

The beauty regarded his relations in stolid silence for a moment, then hung his lower lip and began to howl. His mother walked him up and down the room, striving by various blandishments to win him back to smiles, but he kept turning his head over his shoulder to gaze at his new relatives with an expression of agonised incredulity, as though loath to believe that such monsters could really exist on the earth. He was very fat and very bald, and, if the truth were told, not a beauty at all, but Esmeralda made a fascinating mother, and was so happily deluded about his charms that it would have been cruel to undeceive her.

Even Pixie managed for once to preserve a discreet silence, while Bridgie's e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of astonishment at size and weight pa.s.sed muster as admiration with the complacent mother and nurse.

"You shall see him again later on," Esmeralda announced, as though anxious to soften the pain of separation, as she led her sisters from the room. "I must show you over the house before lunch. Geoffrey had the drawing-rooms redecorated before we were married, but this is the first time I have been able to entertain. I wish you could come and stay here, Bridgie, but I suppose nothing would make you desert the boys. Never mind, you will be here every time that there is anything going on, and it is not much fun preparing when one has a houseful of servants. Do you remember how we used to be making jellies and creams all the day before, and running about arranging the house until a few minutes before the time when the people arrived? That's all over now, and I do nothing but give orders and grumble. This way! There! What do you think of that for an imposing vista?"

It was indeed very imposing, for one long yellow room opened into another decorated in palest blue, which in its turn showed a glimpse of a conservatory gay with flowers.

The rooms were so huge, so lofty in stature, that Pixie was puzzled to understand how the unimposing exterior could contain such surprises, while Esmeralda strutted about displaying one treasure after another, giving detailed descriptions of exactly how the rooms were to be arranged for the contemplated entertainments, and glancing complacently at her own reflection in the long mirrors. She looked ridiculously young to be the mistress of this fine establishment, and despite occasional affectations, there was more of the schoolgirl than of the woman of the world, in her happy voice and eager gestures.

From the reception-rooms the sisters adjourned to the dining-room, a big, somewhat gloomy apartment facing the street, very handsome, very severe, and evidently dedicated to one purpose only, and never by any chance entered from the time one meal ended until another began. The butler was arranging dishes on the sideboard, the table was spread with a glittering profusion of gla.s.s and silver, and an array of cold dainties, at sight of which Bridgie blushed, and stared at the floor.

She waited, trembling, to hear Pixie's exclamation, but none came, and as they adjourned towards the library she slipped her hand through Esmeralda's arm, and said, half laughing, half nervous--

"I don't understand the ways of grand ladies yet, Joan dear! I shall have to get into them by degrees. You wrote that you were coming to open the house, and I imagined you in the same sort of confusion which we were in at Rutland Road, only of course ten times worse, as your house is so big. We thought you would be tired and hungry, and perhaps have nothing to eat but sandwiches or biscuits, and we--we brought some lunch for you and ourselves!"

Esmeralda threw back her head and laughed with much enjoyment.

"You funny dear, I never heard of anything so quaint! It was sweet of you all the same, and I'm ever so grateful. But, oh dear! what would the servants say if they knew! They would think my relations had come out of the Ark. And where in the world have you put the provisions?"

"I--I--" Bridgie looked round for Pixie, but she had lingered behind, and there was no one to help her out of her plight. "I had the basket in my hand, and we were standing at the door, and I heard you calling and I rushed in. I gave it to someone. I was in such a hurry I hardly noticed who it was. I think it was the man in the dining-room now!"

"Montgomery!" echoed Esmeralda blankly. She stood staring at Bridgie with horrified eyes. "Bridgie, how _could_ you? What do you mean by it? What did you bring, and how was it made up?"

"A chicken, and pies, and apples, and a tin of toffee. Everything you liked--and some little rolls and a pot of b.u.t.ter. They were in a basket--a big basket with a serviette over the top!" cried Bridgie, with desperate candour, determined to tell the worst at once and get it over.

At home at Rutland Road it had seemed such a simple and natural thing to do, but ten minutes' experience of Park Lane had shown clearly enough how unnecessary had been her anxiety, how ridiculous it must seem in the estimation of the household! She looked at Esmeralda with troubled eyes, and Esmeralda flushed, and cried testily--

"A basket of provisions, and you handed it to Montgomery! He would think, of course, that it was his duty to open it, and-- Oh, Bridgie, how could you? He will tell the story in the servants' hall, and they will all laugh and make fun. It's too tiresome! I can't think how you can have made such a mistake!"

"I thought of you, you see, and not of the servants. It never occurred to my mind that you could be ashamed of me, whatever I did!" said Bridgie quietly.

"I'm not in the least ashamed of you, I'm ashamed of the basket! You ask Jack when you go home, and he'll tell you 'twas a foolish thing to do, and you walking, too, and not driving to the door. We won't talk about it any more, or we shall both get angry, and it's done now and can't be helped. What do you think of this room? Geoffrey is quite proud of his books, and we mean to make this our private little den, and retire here when we are tired of living in public. Here's the electric light, you see, switched on to these movable lamps, so that one can read comfortably in any position!"