Mrs.Anderton thought her plain and most uncomfortably aloof; she really regretted that she had put into her husband's head the idea of giving this invitation.

He would gladly have left Halcyone alone, but for her kindly thought.

Mabel was just seventeen, and such a handful that her father had decided she should stay in the schoolroom with her sister for another year, and Mrs.Anderton had felt it would be a good opportunity for Halcyone to rejoin the family circle at a time when her presence, if she proved good-looking, could not in any way interfere with her stepsister's debut.
And here, instead of being overcome with gratitude and excitement, this cold, quiet girl was taking it all as quite an ordinary circumstance.

No wonder she, Louisa Anderton, felt aggrieved.
They had hardly time for any more words, for Mrs.Anderton had already put off her departure by the seven-twenty train from Applewood to Upminster on purpose to wait for Halcyone, and now proposed to catch the one at nine o'clock--her fly still waited in the courtyard--and they made rapid arrangements.

Halcyone, accompanied by Priscilla, was to meet her the next day at the Upminster junction at eleven o'clock, and they would journey to London together.
And all the while Halcyone was agreeing to this she was thinking, if in the improbable circumstance that she should get no letter in the morning, it would be wiser to go to London.