“No, Henery; she shall take them all,” she said to her husband. “They shall see the kind of society my child is in; very different from their trumpery little teas! They shall see that you and I, we grudge nothing for Phoebe—and I dare be sworn there is not one of them like her, not even among the quality! I mean,” said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a flush of distress at her own failure in gentility, “among those who think themselves better than we are. But Phoebe will let them see what a pastor’s family is out of their dirty little town. She will bring them to their senses. Though I hesitated at first when it was spoken of, I am very glad now.”
“Yes; Phoebe is a girl to find her level anywhere,” said the pastor, complacently. And they forgot what she would have to put up with in their satisfaction and admiration for herself.
VI
A Morning Call
Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty bound, upon their relation two days after her ball. “You had better come with us, Ursula,” said Miss Dorset. “Sophy does not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead asked a great many questions about you. She is very tenderhearted to the ⸻ young.” Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult to remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish our friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory to their own ears. “She was like you once, you know,” she added, half apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the least disposed to take offence, did not ask how, but assented, as she would have assented had Cousin Anne told her to get ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs and put on her little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue serge jacket which corresponded with her dress. She had not any great opinion of her own good looks, but she hoped that she was “ladylike,” notwithstanding the simplicity of her costume. This was her only aspiration. In her heart she admired the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by her cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and softness, which seemed to Ursula a very inferior “style;” but yet if she looked ladylike that was always something, and both Sir Robert and his daughter looked at her approvingly as she stood buttoning her gloves, waiting for them.
“If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very agreeable, Ursula,” said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little. Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to herself, she would try to be nice—was not that a girl’s first duty? She tried for her part to be nice to everybody, to talk when she could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance into the shopwindows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which were totally out of Ursula’s way.
“There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room,” Anne said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.
“The drawing-room carpet will do very well,” he said. “It will last out my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself.”
This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset’s placid face, for she too, like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were “the fashion.” Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell Janey of—which would be next best.
Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of them. They were the nearest approach to “her own people” that the poor soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with deprecating looks.
“I am sure you are very good—very good to say so. I am
