Bathurst to
take a fancy to Isabel Everard.
Secretly Dinah had dreaded their meeting, fearing that innate antagonism
which her mother invariably seemed to cherish against the upper class.
But within a quarter of an hour of their meeting she was aware of a
change of attitude, a quenching of the hostile element, a curious and
wholly new sensation of peace.
For though Isabel's regal carriage and low, musical voice, marked her as
one of the hated species, her gentleness banished all impression of
pride. She treated Dinah's mother with an assumption of friendliness that
had in it no trace of condescension, and she was so obviously sincere in
her wish to establish a cordial relation that it was impossible to remain
ungracious.
"I can't feel that we are strangers," she said, with her rare smile when
Dinah had departed to fetch the tea. "Your little Dinah has done so much
for me--more than I can ever tell you. That I am to have her for a sister
seems almost too good to be true."
"I wonder you think she's good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her
blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up
well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if
she's fit for it."
"If she were a fine lady, I don't think I should think so highly of her,"
Isabel said gently. "But as to her being unfit to fill a high position,
she is only inexperienced and she will learn very quickly.
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