Part Two Chapter 2 Wedding Arrangements

It was certainly not love at first sight that prompted Mrs. Bathurst to take a fancy to Isabel Everard.

Secretly Dinah had dreaded their meeting, fearing that innate antagonism which her mother invariably seemed to cherish against the upper class. But within a quarter of an hour of their meeting she was aware of a change of attitude, a quenching of the hostile element, a curious and wholly new sensation of peace.

For though Isabel's regal carriage and low, musical voice, marked her as one of the hated species, her gentleness banished all impression of pride. She treated Dinah's mother with an assumption of friendliness that had in it no trace of condescension, and she was so obviously sincere in her wish to establish a cordial relation that it was impossible to remain ungracious.

"I can't feel that we are strangers," she said, with her rare smile when Dinah had departed to fetch the tea. "Your little Dinah has done so much for me--more than I can ever tell you. That I am to have her for a sister seems almost too good to be true."

"I wonder you think she's good enough," remarked Mrs. Bathurst in her blunt way. "She isn't much to look at. I've done my best to bring her up well, but I never thought of her turning into a fine lady. I question if she's fit for it."