Mrs. Seton's note was delivered early at the Castle next morning. Truth compels us to admit that it was written on Sunday night; but it was dated Monday morning, for why should anyone's feelings be hurt even by an appearance of disrespect for the Sabbath day. ("There is none meant," the minister's wife said, who had done all her duties thoroughly, taught her Sabbath class, and heard her children their lessons, and listened devoutly to two sermons before she turned to this less sacred duty.)
"I am asking one or two friends to tea," she wrote, "and I hope you will come. A gentleman will be with us who is a great performer on the piano." It was in this way that the more frivolous intention was veiled. But, unfortunately, as is the case with well-known persons in general, Mrs. Seton's friends judged the past by the present, and were aware of the risks they would run.
"It will be one of her usual affairs," said Miss Margaret, with a glance of intelligence and warning to her sister.
"Just that, Margaret, I should suppose," said Miss Jean.
"Then it will not be worth while for Lilias to take the trouble of dressing herself, Jean – a few old ladies invited to their tea."
"That was what I was going to say, Margaret. I would not fash to go, if I was Lilias. She can have Katie here to-morrow."
"Sisters!" cried Lilias, springing up before them, "you said that last time, and there was a dance. It is very hard upon me, if I am never to have a dance – never till I am as old as you."
The two ladies were seated in two chairs, both large, with high backs and capacious arms, covered with faded velvet, and with each a footstool almost as large as the chair. They were on either side of the window, as they might have been, in winter, on either side of a fire. They wore black dresses, old and dim, but made of rich silk, which was still good, though they had got ever so many years' wear out of it, and small lace caps upon their heads. Miss Jean was fair, and Miss Margaret's brown locks had come to resemble her sister's by dint of growing grey. They had blue eyes, large and clear, so clear as almost to be cold; and good, if somewhat large, features, and resembled each other in the delicacy of their complexions in which there was the tone of health, with scarcely any colour. Between them, on a small, very low seat, not sitting with any dignity, but plumped down like a child, was the third, the heroine of the veil, whose envelope had disguised her so completely that even the lively mind of Lewis had not been roused to any curiosity about her. She had jumped up when she made that observation, and now flung herself down again with a kind of despairing abandon. She looked eighteen at the utmost, a small, slight creature, not like the other ladies in a single feature, at any time; and now, with her brow puckered, the corners of her mouth drooping, her eyes wet, more unlike them, in her young excitement and distress, than ever.
"Now, Lilias, don't be unreasonable, my dear. If it's a dance, it stands to reason you cannot go; but what reason have you to suppose it is a dance? none whatever. 'I am asking one or two friends to tea.' Is that like dancing? She would not ask Jean and me, I suppose, if that was what she meant. We are going to hear a gentleman who is a great performer on the piano. It appears to me that will be rather a dreary style of entertainment, Jean; and I am by no means certain that I will go."
"Well, Margaret," said Jean, "having always been the musical one of the family, it's an inducement to me; but Lilias, poor thing, would not care for it. Besides, I have always been of the opinion that we must not make her cheap, taking her to all the little tea-parties."
"Oh, how can you talk such nonsense, when you never take me to one, never to one! and me close upon eighteen," the girl cried. "Katie goes to them all, and knows everybody, and sees whatever is going on; but I must do nothing but practise and read, practise and read, till I'm sick of everything. I never have any pleasure, nor diversion, nor novelty, nor anything at all, and Katie – "
"Katie! Katie is nothing but the minister's daughter, with no expectations, nor future before her. If she marries a minister like her father, she will do all that can be expected from her. How can you speak of Katie? Jean and me," said Miss Margaret, "have just devoted ourselves to you from your cradle."
"Not quite from her cradle, Margaret, for we were then young ourselves, and her mother, poor thing – "
"Well, well, I did not intend to be taken to the letter," said Miss Margaret, impatiently. "Since ever you have been in our hands – and that is many years back – we have been more like aunts than sisters to you. We have given up all projects of our own. A woman of forty, which is my age, is not beyond thinking of herself in most cases."
"And, reason good, still less," said Miss Jean, "a woman of eight-and-thirty."
"So little a difference as two years cannot be said to count; but all our hopes we have put upon you, Lilias. We might have been jealous of you, seeing what your position is, and what ours is; we would have had great cause. But, on the contrary, we have put all our pride upon you, and thought of nothing but what was the best for you, and pinched ourselves to get masters and means of improvement, and taken houses in Edinburgh winter after winter – "
"Not to speak," said Miss Jean, "of the great things Margaret has planned, when the time comes, which was not done either for her or me."
"I know you are very kind," said Lilias, drying her eyes.
"My dear," said Miss Margaret, "a season in London, and you presented to the Queen, and all the old family friends rallying round you – would I think of a bit little country party with a prospect before me like that?"
At this Lilias looked up with her eyes shining through the wetness that still hung upon her eyelashes.
"It is very, very nice to think of, I don't deny. Oh, and awfully, awfully kind of you to think of it."
(Let it be said here in a parenthesis that this "awfully, awfully," on the lips of Lilias was not slang, but Scotch.)
"I think it is rather good of us. It was never done, as she says, for either Jean or me."
"I doubt if it would have made any difference," said Miss Jean. "What is to be will be; and making a curtsey to the Queen – unless one could get to be acquainted with Her Majesty, which would be a great honour and pleasure – "
"It just makes all the difference," said Miss Margaret, who was more dogmatic; "it just puts the stamp upon a lady. If you're travelling it opens the doors of foreign courts, if you stay at home – well, there is always the Drawing-room to go to."
"And can you go whenever you like, after you have been once introduced?" Lilias added, with a gleam of eagerness.
"Surely, my dear; you send in your name, and you put on your court dress."
"That will be very nice," said the girl. Her bosom swelled with a sigh of pleasure. "For of course the finest company must be always there, and you will hear all the talk that is going on, and see everybody – ambassadors and princes, when they come on visits. Of course you would not be of much importance among so many grand people, just like the 'ladies, &c.,' in Shakespeare. They say nothing themselves, but sometimes the Queen will beckon to them and send them a message, or make them hold her fan, or bring her a book; but you hear all the conversation and see everybody."
"I am afraid," said Miss Jean, who had been watching an opportunity to break in, "you are thinking of maids-of-honour and people in office. Drawing-rooms – " but here she caught her sister's eye and broke off.
"Maids-of-honour are of course the foremost," said Miss Margaret. "I don't see, for my part, why Lilias should not stand as good a chance as any. Her father was a distinguished soldier, and her grandfather, though he has not behaved well to us, was a man that was very well-known, and had a great deal of influence. And the Queen is very feeling. Why she might not be a maid-of-honour, as well as any other young lady, I am at a loss to see."
Lilias jumped to