"None the better for all the confounded clatter you have been making in the hall, I can tell you; I thought you had brought home a dozen children at your heels, judging from the uproar you created. What mad freak has possessed you now, Penelope?"
"Oh! I came for two things—one was to go to the Osborne Castle ball—the other I'll tell you by-and-bye."
"You are always racing over the country, and bent on having your own way, I know."
"So is every one; but they don't all know how to get it, so well as I do; but I see I'm disturbing you, so I shall go and unpack my rattle-traps—Emma come with me."
Emma seemed to obey instinctively—but she felt no pleasure in accompanying her sister. Her voice, look and manner, were alike uninviting, and she felt inclined to shrink from her. Penelope went to the parlour, and stirring the fire, drew in a chair close to the chimney—placed her feet upon the fender, and then turning abruptly round to her sister, said—
"So it is all your doing, is it, our going to the castle balls; it is really something new—Margaret wrote me word you and Miss Osborne were bosom friends?"
Emma coloured, but did not know what to say in reply.
"How sheepish you look, Emma," cried her sister, "one would think you were ashamed of it all; I am sure I think it vastly clever of you to get up a friendship with Miss Osborne, or a flirtation with her brother. I've a great respect for girls who know how to push their way and make the most of circumstances. What sort of young fellow is Lord Osborne?,"
"As if I did not know _that_," cried Penelope, "why, I've seen him hundreds of time, child; almost before you were born. I mean is he pleasant?—can he talk nonsense?—does he know how to make himself agreeable?"
"That must depend upon taste," replied Emma, "he never was particularly pleasant to me; and, as to his talking, it's neither good sense, nor good nonsense."
"Do you know what good nonsense is, Emma?" cried Penelope, "Why, then, I dare say you may not be quite detestable."
"I should hope not," said Emma, trying to smile.
"I thought your uncle might, perhaps, have made a Methodist of you, and that would not have suited me. Those musty old doctors of divinity have, sometimes, queer notions."