Mrs. Northey, though she knew quite well what the duchess was thinking, shook her head as if she could add much more, but would not; and the duchess, her apologies made, rose to take leave; resolved to give her daughter such a wigging by the way as that young lady had never experienced. But while they stood in the act of making their adieux, Mr. Northey entered; and his dolorous head shaking, which would have done credit to a father's funeral, detained her so long, that she was still where he found her, when an exclamation from Lady Betty, who had profited by her mother's engrossment to look out of the window, startled the party.
"Oh, la, ma'am, here she is!" the girl cried. "I vow and declare she is!"
"Betty!" her Grace cried sharply. "Remember yourself. What do you mean? Come, we must be going."
"But, ma'am, she's at the door," Lady Betty replied with a giggle. And turning and thrusting her muff into her mouth--as one well understanding the crisis--she looked over it at the party, her eyes bright with mischief.
Mrs. Northey's face turned quite white. "If this--if your daughter means that the misguided girl is returning here," she cried, "I will not have it."
"It is not to be thought of!" Mr. Northey chimed in. "She would not have the audacity," he added more pompously, "after her behaviour." And he was moving to the window--while the kind-hearted duchess wished herself anywhere else--when the door opened, and the servant announced, "Sir Hervey Coke!"
The duchess gave vent to a sigh of relief, while the Northeys looked daggers at Lady Betty, the author of the false alarm. Meantime Coke advanced, his hat under his arm. "I am really no more than an ambassador," he said gaily. "My principal is downstairs waiting leave to ascend. Duchess, your humble servant! Lady Betty, yours--you grow prettier every day. Mrs. Northey, I have good news for you. You will be glad to hear that you were misinformed as to the object of your sister's departure from the house--about which you wrote to me."
"Misinformed!" Mrs. Northey exclaimed with a freezing look. "I was misinformed, sir?"
"Completely, at the time you wrote to me," Sir Hervey answered, smiling on the party. "As you will acknowledge in one moment."