Cleverness of the right sort was exactly the quality
that Lady Maresfield prefigured as indispensable in a young lady to
whom she should marry her second son, over whose own deficiencies she
flung the veil of a maternal theory that HIS cleverness was of a sort
that was wrong. Those who knew him less well were content to wish
that he might not conceal it for such a scruple. This enumeration of
his mother's views does not exhaust the list, and it was in obedience
to one too profound to be uttered even by the historian that, after a
very brief delay, she decided to move across the crowded lobby. Her
daughter Bessie was the only one with her; Maggie was dining with the
Vaughan-Veseys, and Fanny was not of an age. Mrs. Tramore the
younger showed only an admirable back--her face was to her old
gentleman--and Bessie had drifted to some other people; so that it
was comparatively easy for Lady Maresfield to say to Rose, in a
moment: "My dear child, are you never coming to see us?"
"We shall be delighted to come if you'll ask us," Rose smiled.
Lady Maresfield had been prepared for the plural number, and she was
a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert.
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