Arabella

Lady Bridlington did not expect Arabella’s first party to be a failure, since she was a good hostess, and never offered her guests any but the best wines and refreshments, but that it should prove to be a wild success had not even entered her head.

She had planned it more with the idea of bringing Arabella to the notice of other hostesses than as a brilliant social event; and although she had certainly invited a good many unattached gentlemen she had not held out the lure of dancing, or of cards, and so had little hope of seeing more than half of them in her spacious rooms. Her main preoccupation was lest Arabella should not be looking her best, or should jeopardise her future by some unconventional action, or some unlucky reference to that regrettable Yorkshire Vicarage.

In general, the child behaved very prettily, but once or twice she had seriously alarmed her patroness, either by a remark which betrayed all too clearly the modesty of her circumstances – as when she had asked, in front of the butler, whether she should help to prepare the rooms for the party, for all the world as though she expected to be given an apron and a duster!

– or by some impulsive action so odd as to be positively outrageous.