When the summer epidemic of garden parties broke forth, old Doby gleefully beheld, day after day, the Court carriage drive by bearing her ladyship and her sister attired in fairest shades and tints "same as if they was flowers." Their delicate vaporousness, and rare colours, were sweet delights to the old man, and he and Mrs.Welden spent happy evenings discussing them as personal possessions.To these two Betty WAS a personal possession, bestowing upon them a marked distinction.They were hers and she was theirs.No one else so owned her.Heaven had given her to them that their last years might be lighted with splendour.
On her way to one of the garden parties she stopped the carriage before old Doby's cottage, and went in to him to speak a few words.She was of pale convolvulus blue that afternoon, and Doby, standing up touching his forelock and Mrs.Welden curtsying, gazed at her with prayer in their eyes.She had a few flowers in her hand, and a book of coloured photographs of Venice.
"These are pictures of the city I told you about--the city built in the sea--where the streets are water.You and Mrs.
Welden can look at them together," she said, as she laid flowers and book down."I am going to Dunholm Castle to a garden party this afternoon.Some day I will come and tell you about it."The two were at the window staring spellbound, as she swept back to the carriage between the sweet-williams and Canterbury bells bordering the narrow garden path.
"Do you know I really went in to let them see my dress,"she said, when she rejoined Lady Anstruthers."Old Doby's granddaughter told me that he and Mrs.Welden have little quarrels about the colours I wear.It seems that they find my wardrobe an absorbing interest.When I put the book on the table, I felt Doby touch my sleeve with his trembling old hand.He thought I did not know.""What will they do with Venice?" asked Rosy.
"They will believe the water is as blue as the photographs make it--and the palaces as pink.It will seem like a chapter out of Revelations, which they can believe is true and not merely `Scriptur,'--because _I_ have been there.I wish Ihad been to the City of the Gates of Pearl, and could tell them about that."On the lawns at the garden parties she was much gazed at and commented upon.Her height and her long slender neck held her head above those of other girls, the dense black of her hair made a rich note of shadow amid the prevailing English blondness.Her mere colouring set her apart.Rosy used to watch her with tender wonder, recalling her memory of nine-year-old Betty, with the long slim legs and the demanding and accusing child-eyes.She had always been this creature even in those far-off days.At the garden party at Dunholm Castle it became evident that she was, after a manner, unusually the central figure of the occasion.It was not at all surprising, people said to each other.Nothing could have been more desirable for Lord Westholt.He combined rank with fortune, and the Vanderpoel wealth almost constituted rank in itself.Both Lord and Lady Dunholm seemed pleased with the girl.Lord Dunholm showed her great attention.
