Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/131

123 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 123 from her husband, you know, in that extraordinary American way of yours. If you want a house where there is always something going on, I recommend you to go down and stay with my sister, Lady Pensil, in Bedfordshire. I'll write to her to-morrow, and I am sure she'll be delighted to ask you. I know just what you want you want a house where they go in for theatricals and picnics and that sort of thing. My sister is just that sort of woman; she is always getting up something or other, and she is always glad to have the sort of people that help her. I am sure she'll ask you down by return of post ; she is tremendously fond of distinguished people and writers. She writes herself, you know ; but I haven't read everything she has written. It's usually poetry, and I don't go in much for poetry unless it's Byron. I suppose you think a great deal of Byron in America," Mr. Bantling continued, expanding in the stimu- lating air of Miss Stackpole's attention, bringing up his sequences promptly, and at last changing his topic, with a natural eagerness to provide suitable conversation for so remarkable a woman. He returned, however, ultimately to the idea of Henrietta's going to stay with Lady Pensil; in Bedfordshire. " I understand what you want," he repeated; "you want to see some genuine English sport. The Touchetts are not English at all, you know ; they live on a kind of foreign system ; they have got some awfully queer ideas. The old man thinks it's wicked to hunt, I am told. You must get down to my sister's in time for the theatricals, and I am sure she will be glad to give you a part. I am sure you act well ; I know you are very clever. My sister is forty years old, and she has seven children ; but she is going to play the principal part. Of course you needn't act if you don't want to." In this manner Mr. Bantling delivered himself, while they strolled over the grass, in Winchester Square, which, although it had been peppered by the London soot, invited the tread to linger. Henrietta thought her blooming, easy-voiced bachelor, with his impressibility to feminine merit and his suggestiveness of allusion, a very agreeable man, and she valued the opportunity he offered her. " I don't know but I would go, if your sister should ask me," she said. "I think it would be x my duty. What do you call her name ? " "Pensil. It's an odd name, but it isn't a bad one." " I think one name is as good as another. But what is herrank 1 ?" " Oh, she's a baron's wife; a convenient sort of rank. You are tine enough, and you are not too fine."