Volume Iii Part 24 (1/2)
”You are very kind, and I beg to thank you and the Duke very much.
Yes, I shall be very grateful to you for so befriending me; it is good of you, who know me so little; of course it is also good of your nephew.
”Yours truly,
”GRACE RIVERS.”
”My dear Grace, now all is most delightfully arranged,” said Lady Lyons; ”now it will not be in a corner.”
”The place is not changed,” said Grace. ”I told you before I did not mean a corner.”
”You do take everything so much as a matter of course,” said Lady Lyons, irritably.
”How ought I to take things? Ought I to laugh or cry? Tell me what is the proper thing to do?”
”You might be a little pleased.”
”I am very much pleased. I think the d.u.c.h.ess is very kind.”
”She must have taken a fancy to you, my dear.”
”I think not. I suspect she does not know me by sight.”
”Then why do this? What do you think yourself?”
”I think it is all for Margaret.”
”And she has never seen her! My dear, you really are too ridiculous!”
”No, Lady Lyons; can you not see how things really are? Sir Albert knew how you lamented my want of friends and he has done this for me.”
”But why, my dear, why? That's what I want to know,” and Lady Lyons looked puzzled.
”Ah, that is very puzzling indeed,” said Grace, gravely: and Lady Lyons, who had from the first stated that she thought she had a gown that was quite good enough, went to consult her maid upon the subject.
She found her maid in a state of ecstacy over a very handsome dark, plum-coloured silk, very fas.h.i.+onably though quietly made, bonnet and mantle to match, ”With Grace's love” on the top of it.
”Oh, my dear, how lovely! I am so sorry I said that about a corner.
Corner, indeed! how kind, how very thoughtful of you! I cannot bear taking such a handsome present from you.”
”You must learn to take many presents from your new daughter,” said Grace, but something in her tone struck Lady Lyons.
”You have been crying,” she exclaimed; ”what is it, my dear? what has happened?”
”Nothing has happened, but I have a letter from Margaret, a most dear letter, and I could not help contrasting my marriage with hers, for I love Paul, Lady Lyons, and all is different.”
”Very different,” said Lady Lyons, and she sighed sympathetically; ”and Mr. Drayton had no position, my dear; he was only a manufacturer.”
”Oh, Lady Lyons, how absurd you are!” said Grace, the tears still standing in her eyes, though she laughed heartily; ”fancy, in these days, talking like that! Why, all our leading spirits in Parliament and out of it are 'only' manufacturers; they have the ball at their feet now.”