The
Swiss major-domo of the house celebrated Miss Bell's praises in almost
every European language, which he spoke with indifferent
incorrectness; the coachman was happy to drive her out; the page cried
when he heard she was ill; and Calverley and Coldstream (those two
footmen, so large, so calm ordinarily, and so difficult to move),
broke out into extraordinary hilarity at the news of her
convalescence, and intoxicated the page at a wine shop, to _fete_
Laura's recovery. Even Lady Diana Pynsent (our former acquaintance Mr.
Pynsent had married by this time), Lady Diana, who had had a
considerable dislike to Laura for some time, was so enthusiastic as to
say that she thought Miss Bell was a very agreeable person, and that
grandmamma had found a great _trouvaille_ in her. All this good-will
and kindness Laura had acquired, not by any arts, not by any flattery,
but by the simple force of good-nature, and by the blessed gift of
pleasing and being pleased.
On the one or two occasions when he had seen Lady Rockminster, the old
lady, who did not admire him, had been very pitiless and abrupt with
our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to Baymouth to
find Laura installed in her house in the quality of humble companion,
and treated no better than himself.
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