Bath Belles by Joan Smith

beggar in the city. I’ll introduce you to her.”
    I wasn’t at all sure I wished to add a beggar to my list of acquaintances. Already Mr. Maitland had introduced me to a thief.
    He had a bag of nuts in his pocket, and he began looking around the trees. Before long, a large gray squirrel came and took the nuts from his fingers. I was formally presented to Lady Gray. Other squirrels were content to retrieve the nuts as he tossed them about on the grass. He looked younger, less sophisticated, at this occupation. In fact, he looked like a boy.
    A bold blue jay was making a wicked racket in the tree-top overhead. It was furious at being left out of the treat. When one nut landed a few yards beyond the others the blue jay swooped down and grabbed it up. “Oh, Des, look!”I laughed. “Now Lady Jay has joined your party.”
    “Too bad for her. I have no sympathy with backward ladies,”he said, and crumpled up the empty bag. When he re-joined me he wore a triumphant smile. “But I am happy she came, even if she wasn’t invited. She surprised another backward lady into calling me Des,”he said, and put my hand on his arm to return to the carriage.
    When we reached Elm Street I was astonished to learn it was twelve-thirty. Mr. Maitland did not come in with me but carried my parcels to the door and arranged an hour to return that evening. Mama and Esther had already made sandwiches and were fast casting themselves into a pelter at my late return.
    “We were afraid Mr. Maitland had done something with you,”Mama chided.
    “Oh, he did, Mama. He took me to meet a beggar in the park.”I laughed and told her the story.
    “Next time I shall go with you and Mr. Maitland,”Esther said. “Mr. Duke is a dead bore. All he talked about were sermons and churches.”
    “He seems a well-behaved lad,”Mama said approvingly.
    “What did you buy?”Esther asked.
    We examined each other’s goods. Mr. Duke had taken the ladies to the Pantheon Bazaar. Mama thought the merchandise there not quite so fine as mine. I didn’t tell her the ghastly sum I had paid for my superior stuff, but I didn’t regret it.
    In the afternoon our other callers came to take us out. It was so strange to see Mama walk out the door on the arm of any gentleman except Papa. The feeling of change, of oddness, was mitigated by Eliot. There I felt dangerously at home, it was so much like being with Graham. We did the sorts of things Graham would have done, too. We went to see St. Paul’s Cathedral and Whitehall and St. James’s Palace and Park. Mr. Duke kept us merry with his foolish chatter.
    Inside St. Paul’s he stood at the back of the nave, holding Esther’s arm. “Now that is what I call a church,”he exclaimed. Earlier he had proclaimed St. James’s Palace what he would call a palace, and St. James’s Park what he would call a park. “Shall we go down the aisle together?”he asked her.
    Eliot smiled at me. “Perhaps more is meant than meets the ear, as Milton said.”
    Duke scowled fiercely. “Eh? Let him say it to my face!”
    We had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, and when we reached Elm Street, Mama and Mr. Stone were just driving up, so we stood chatting a moment.
    “How did you find your sister, Mr. Stone?”I asked politely.
    “We didn’t go to her,”Mama confessed. “We went instead to an art gallery—my, such pictures! Enough to make a lady blush.”
    I gave Mr. Stone my gimlet eye and he tried to dismiss me. “Just letting down our hair a little.”
    “What hair?”Duke mumbled. For once, I didn’t rebuke him.
    “When would you like me to come and clear out Graham’s things for you?”Eliot asked before leaving. “Or shall I do it now, while I’m here?”
    We kept country hours, and I knew Mama would be wanting her dinner almost immediately. “Can you come tomorrow morning?”I suggested.
    “As you don’t plan to go out, why don’t I come this evening?”he parried.
    “We’ve been pounding the streets all day. I