Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/24

 "Ah; that pony carriage; that is so like her nonsense. Pony carriages are the fashion, and she has taken to drive. I should not be the least surprised any day to hear that she had broken her neck. Why cannot she go out in her britzska, and be driven by her coachman? and as for looking handsome, it is not very likely that she should at her age. Lady Eskdale is as old as I am, Mr. Douglas."

"You don't say so," was again on the point of escaping Mr. Douglas's lips, and after a pause he bethought himself of the lovers as a safer topic than Lady Eskdale's beauty; he had tried that too often in his life. "Did you see Helen, my dear?"

"Oh! to be sure. She was sent for. 'Dear Love,' as Lady Eskdale drawled out, 'she is so happy; and you must see Teviot, he is such a darling; if he were my own son, I could not love him more.' So in they came, the dear love and the darling. You know how I hate those London sort of men, with their mustachios and chains and offensive waistcoats, and Lord Teviot is one of the worst specimens I ever saw of the kind"

"And Helen?" again said Mr. Douglas.

"Oh, Helen!" said Mrs. Douglas, and then paused. She was in imminent peril of being forced to praise, but escaped with great adroitness. "Well, if Helen were not one of that family, I should not dislike her. She is civil enough, and promised to show the girls her trousseau; but she is altered too. I think her looking dreadfully old, Mr. Douglas."

"Old at eighteen, Anne! what wrinkled wretches we must be! Has Helen grown gray?"

"No; but you know what I mean: she looks so set-up, so fashioned. In short, it does not signify, but she is altered."

Mr. Douglas had his suspicions that Helen must have been looking beautiful, since even his wife could not detect, or at least specify, the faults that were to be found in her