"St. Leger?" said Mr. Copley. "Who is he? He's a goodish old fellow; sharp as a hawk in business; but he's solid; solid as the Bank. That's all there is about him; he is of no great count, except for his money.
He'll never set the Thames on fire. What did he ask us for?--Humph!
Well--he and I have had a good deal to do with each other. And then--"
Mr. Copley paused and his eyes involuntarily went over the table to his daughter. "Do you remember, Dolly, being in my office one day, a month ago or more, when Mr. St. Leger came in? he and his son?"
Dolly remembered nothing about it; remembered indeed being there, but not who came in.
"Well, _they_ remember it," said Mr. Copley.
"Is it a good place for Dolly to go?"
"Dolly? Oh yes. Why not? They have a fine place out of town. Dolly will tell you about it when she has been there."
"And what must Dolly wear?" pursued Mrs. Copley.
"Wear? Oh, just what everybody wears. The regular thing, I suppose.
Dolly may wear what she has a mind to."
"That is just what you know she cannot, Mr. Copley. At home she might; but these people here are so very particular."
"About dress? Not at all, my dear. English people let you go your own way in that as much as any people on the face of the earth. They do not care how you dress."
"They don't _care_, no," said Mrs. Copley; "they don't care if you went on your head; but all the same they judge you according to how you look and what you do. And us especially because we are foreigners. I don't want them to turn up their noses at Dolly because she is an American."
"I'd as lieve they did it for that as for anything," said Dolly laughing; "but I hope the people we are going to will know better."
"They _will_ know better, there is no fear," answered her father.
The subject troubled Mrs. Copley's head, however, from that time till the day of the dinner; and even after Dolly and her father had driven off and were gone, she still debated with herself uneasily whether a darker dress would have done better, and whether Dolly ought to have had flowers in her hair, to make her very best impression upon her entertainers. For Dolly had elected to wear white, and would deck herself with no ornament at all, neither ribband nor flower. Mrs.
Copley half grumbled, yet could not but allow to herself that there was nothing to wish for in the finished effect; and Dolly was allowed to depart; but as I said, after she was gone, Mrs. Copley went on troubling herself with doubts on the question.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PEACOCKS.
No doubts troubled Dolly's mind during that drive, about dress or anything else. Her dress she had forgotten indeed; and the pain of leaving her mother at home was forced to give way before the multitude of new and pleasant impressions. That drive was pure enjoyment. The excitement and novelty of the occasion gave no doubt a spur to Dolly's spirits and quickened her perceptions; they were all alive, as the carriage rolled along over the smooth roads. What could be better than to drive so, on such an evening, through such a country? For the weather was perfect, the landscape exceedingly rich and fair, the vegetation in its glory. And the roads themselves were full of the most varied life, and offered to the little American girl a flashing, changing, very amusing and abundantly suggestive scene. Dolly's eyes were incessantly busy, yet her lips did not move unless to smile; and her father for a long time would not interrupt her meditations. Good that she should forget herself, he thought; if she were recalled to the practical present maybe she would grow nervous. That was the only thing Mr. Copley was afraid of. However, for him to keep absolute silence beyond a limited time was out of his nature.
"Are you happy, Dolly?" he asked her.
"Very happy, father! If only mother was with us."
"Ah, yes, it would have been rather pleasanter for you; but you must not mind that."
"I am afraid I do not mind it enough, I am so amused with everything. I cannot help it."
"That's right. Now, Dolly"
"Yes, father"
"I should like to know what you have been thinking of all this while. I have been watching the smiles coming and going."
"I do not know that I was thinking at all--until just now; just before you spoke."
"And of what then?"
"It came to me, I do not know why, a question. We have passed so many people who seemed as if they were enjoying themselves,--like me;--and so many pretty-looking places, where people might live happy, one would think; and the question somehow came to me, father, what I am going to do with my own life?"
"Do with it?" said Mr. Copley astonished; "why enjoy it, Dolly. Every day as much as to-day."
"But perhaps one cannot enjoy life always," said Dolly thoughtfully.
"All you can, then, dear; all you can. There is nothing to prevent _your_ always enjoying it. You will have money enough; and that is the main thing. There is nothing to hinder your enjoying yourself."
"But, father, don't you think one ought to do more with one's life than that?"
"Yes; you'll marry one of these days, and so make somebody else enjoy himself."
"What would become of you and mother then?" asked Dolly shyly.
"We'd get along," said Mr. Copley. "What we care about, is to see you enjoy life, Dolly. Are you enjoying it now, puss?"
"Very much, father."
"Then so am I."
The carriage left the high road here, and Dolly's attention was again, seemingly, all bestowed on what she saw from its windows. Her father watched her, and could not observe that she was either timid or excited in the prospect of the new scenes upon which she was about to enter.
Her big brown eyes were wide open, busy and interested, at the same time wholly self-forgetful. Self-forgetful they remained when arriving at the house, and when she was introduced to the family; and her manner consequently left nothing to be desired. Yet house and grounds and establishment were on a scale to which Dolly hitherto had been entirely unaccustomed.
There was a small dinner party gathered, and Dolly was taken in to table by young Mr. St. Leger, the son of their host. Dolly had seen this gentleman before, and so in this concourse of strangers she felt more at home with him than with anybody. Young Mr. St. Leger was a very handsome fellow; with regular features and soft, rather lazy, blue eyes, which, however, were not insipid. Dolly rather liked him; the expression of his features was gentle and good, so were his manners. He seemed well pleased with his choice of a companion, and did his best to make Dolly pleased also.
"You are new in this part of the world?" he remarked to her.
"I am new in any part of the world," said Dolly, dimpling, as she did when something struck her funnily. "I am not very old yet."
"No, I see," said her companion, laughing a little, though in some doubt whether he or she had made the fun. "How do you like us? Or haven't you been long enough here to judge?"
"I have been in England a good many months."
"Then is it a fair question?"
"All questions are fair," said Dolly. "I like some things here very much."
"I should be delighted to know what."
"I'll tell you," said Dolly's father, who sat opposite and had caught the question. "She likes an old suit of armour or a collection of old stones in the form of an arch or a gateway; and in the presence of the crown jewels she was almost as bad as that Scotch lady who worshipped the old Regalia of the northern kingdom. Only it was the antiquity that Dolly worshipped, you know; not the royalty."
"What is there in antiquity?" said Mr. St. Leger, turning his eyes again curiously to Dolly. "Old things were young once; how are they any better for being old?"