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Esmeralda hesitated, seized with a sudden mysterious disinclination to say "No," a desperate longing to say "Yes," and yet and yet, how could it decently be done? "I don't know! It's Bridgie's turn. We have only one horse between us, and I have been the last three times. I don't like to ask her again. It seems so mean." "But if you did ask, she would let you go.
Bridgie's voice sounded formal and ill-at-ease, and both sisters felt the position a trifle strained, and were unaffectedly relieved to see Pixie strolling towards them at this critical minute. She was smiling to herself as at a pleasant remembrance, and lost no time in entering into conversation. "I don't know how it is about butlers they all love me!" she announced thoughtfully.
Ethel had not tossed her head once since she entered the room; Kate kept taking off her spectacles, and polishing them on her handkerchief; Flora looked so kind and comfortable; the "Bridgie's expression" was stronger than ever in Margaret's eyes; but there was a something in Lottie's face a humble, wistful longing which was to be found nowhere else.
"There is more than one girl in the house, however, and I know vich of the two would be my choice, if I were, as you say, a young man myself," returned Mademoiselle sturdily. Bridgie's utter unconsciousness of her own claims to attention filled her at once with admiration and impatience, and she could not resist putting her feelings into words.
The tears had risen in Bridgie's eyes, but now she was obliged to laugh at the same time, for it was so droll to think of Pixie as a young lady "with an air!" She laid her hand on Mademoiselle's arm, with one of her pretty caressing gestures. "You are a dear, kind Therese, and it all sounds too charming, but I am afraid it cannot be done.
Will you excuse me if I leave you for a few moments, while I give some orders to the maids?" No one answered, but she lost no time in hurrying from the room, and as the door closed behind her, the Captain came slowly across the room, staring at Bridgie's white face. "Miss O'Shaughnessy! She called you `Miss O'Shaughnessy'!" She shrank before him, scared by his strange, excited manner.
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.
Sylvia reluctantly handed the case for Miss Munns's curious scrutiny, the while she opened the note which had fallen from the paper. Bridgie's handwriting confronted her; but she had hardly time to marvel how so costly a gift could come from such an impecunious donor, before surprise number two confronted her in the opening words.
Mrs Wallace's letter had conveyed an invitation to stay for the night, so the lovers had two days to sit and talk together in the lovely summer garden before returning to give an account of themselves in Rutland Road. Jack was not prepared to see a stranger accompanying his sister, but he welcomed him with Irish heartiness, and guessed how the land lay at the first glance at Bridgie's face.
There were still sadder times ahead, and a loneliness such as she dared not even imagine; for Esmeralda had not Bridgie's sweet faith and trust, and hers was a stormy, rebellious nature, which made trouble harder to bear by useless fightings against the inevitable.
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