In the autumn holiday-time friends in the south, who happened to be visiting Scotland, were invited to stop at Mount Morven on their way to the Highlands; and were accustomed to meet the neighbors of the Linleys at dinner on their arrival. The time for this yearly festival had now come round again; the guests were in the house; and Mr. and Mrs. Linley were occupied in ****** their arrangements for the dinner-party. With her unfailing consideration for every one about her, Mrs. Linley did not forget Sydney while she was sending out her cards of invitation. "Our table will be full at dinner," she said to her husband; "Miss Westerfield had better join us in the evening with Kitty."
"I suppose so," Linley answered with some hesitation.
"You seem to doubt about it, Herbert. Why?"
"I was only wondering--"
"Wondering about what?"
"Has Miss Westerfield got a gown, Catherine, that will do for a party?"
Linley's wife looked at him as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses. "Fancy a man thinking of that!" she exclaimed.
"Herbert, you astonish me."
He laughed uneasily. "I don't know how I came to think of it--unless it is that she wears the same dress every day. Very neat; but (perhaps I'm wrong) a little shabby too."
"Upon my word, you pay Miss Westerfield a compliment which you have never paid to me! Wear what I may, you never seem to know how _I_ am dressed."
"I beg your pardon, Catherine, I know that you are always dressed well."
That little tribute restored him to his place in his wife's estimation. "I may tell you now," she resumed, with her gentle smile, "that you only remind me of what I had thought of already.
My milliner is at work for Miss Westerfield. The new dress must be your gift."
"Are you joking?"
"I am in earnest. To-morrow is Sydney's birthday; and here is _my_ present." She opened a jeweler's case, and took out a plain gold bracelet. "Suggested by Kitty," she added, "pointing to an inlaid miniature portrait of the child. Herbert read the inscription: _To Sydney Westerfield with Catherine Linley's love._ He gave the bracelet back to his wife in silence; his manner was more serious than usual--he kissed her hand The day of the dinner-party marked an epoch in Sydney's life.
For the first time, in all her past experience, she could look in the glass, and see herself prettily dressed, with a gold bracelet on her arm. If we consider how men (in one way) and milliners (in another) profit by it, vanity is surely to be reckoned, not among the vices but among the virtues of the ***. Will any woman, who speaks the truth, hesitate to acknowledge that her first sensations of gratified vanity rank among the most exquisite and most enduring pleasures that she has ever felt? Sydney locked her door, and exhibited herself to herself--in the front view, the side view, and the back view (over the shoulder) with eyes that sparkled and cheeks that glowed in a delicious confusion of pride and astonishment. She practiced bowing to strangers in her new dress; she practiced shaking hands gracefully, with her bracelet well in view. Suddenly she stood still before the glass and became serious and thoughtful. Kind and dear Mr. Linley was in her mind now. While she was asking herself anxiously what he would think of her, Kitty--arrayed in _her_ new finery, as vain and as happy as her governess--drummed with both fists outside the door, and announced at the top of her voice that it was time to go downstairs. Sydney's agitation at the prospect of meeting the ladies in the drawing-room added a charm of its own to the flush that her exercises before the glass had left on her face.