A Romance of Billy-Goat HillRice, Alice Caldwell Hegan
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A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
Rice, Alice Caldwell Hegan
Kentucky -- Fiction
“And you attend to everything just as if she weren't there? It's really
too funny, isn't it, Margery? Tell Mrs. Queerington that I'll send the
motor for her at five; and do see that she is properly hooked up.”
Myrtella succeeded in getting herself and the box silently out of the
room, but the butler passing her on the back stairs was startled by a
verbal shower that was not in the least intended for him. It was as if
a watering cart had suddenly and unexpectedly turned on its supply
regardless of its surroundings.
At five o'clock Miss Lady, very radiant and apparently in high spirits,
presented herself at the Sequins'.
“May I come in just for a minute?” she asked at Margery's door. “I've
brought you some chrysanthemums. Uncle Jimpson brought them in from
Thornwood this morning. It's too bad you aren't so well.”
Margery turned admiring eyes on the bright face above her.
“I'm no worse,” she said, “just disappointed. I thought I was going to
have you all to myself this afternoon.”
“But I didn't know you could have me! I'll run in and tell your mother.”
Mrs. Sequin, who was being insinuated into a very tight gown by the
sheer physical prowess of her maid, exclaimed with satisfaction as Miss
Lady entered:
“There, I knew it! The hat makes the costume. You are perfect! Now,
remember the people I want you to be especially nice to, Mrs. Gibbs,
Mrs. Marchmont--”
“The silly old woman that paints her face and wears the pearls like
moth balls? She drove around yesterday to tell me the name of her
hairdresser. It's always the people that haven't any hair that want to
have it dressed.”
“Miss Lady! She is Mrs. Leslie Marchmont, the most sought after woman in
town!”
“I don't care, her horses look as if they had been fed on corn stalks.”
“But you mustn't say such things! You must cultivate discretion. If you
want me to introduce you to the right people--”
“But they may not be the right people for me! Some of them are lovely,
but I can't stand the affected ones, nor the ones that patronize me.”
“But they won't patronize you if you are a little more reserved. There's
no earthly reason for your telling them that you keep only one servant,
and saying that you come from Billy-goat Hill. It's a horrid name given
our beautiful hillside, by horrid people. You see, you really must
cultivate more caution. You are,--what shall I say? too frank, too
natural.”
Miss Lady laughed. “I haven't the least idea how to go about being
unnatural, but, thank heaven, I don't have to learn to-day! Margery is
feeling better and is going to let me stay with her.”
“That's absurd! You are all ready to go, and I want Mrs. Bartrum to see
you for the first time just as you look now. Where are your gloves?”
“I forgot them, but it doesn't matter, I'm not going.”
“I'll send Jenkins for them at once.”
Miss Lady's cheek flushed and she looked at Mrs. Sequin in perplexity,
then her brow cleared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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