“I must have called a wrong witness,” muttered he, “there’s no doubt of it; she belonged to ‘the other side.’”
CHAPTER XXIII. MALONE IN GOOD COMPANY
When Georgina returned to the drawing-room, she found her sister seated on a sofa, with Sir Within beside her, and in front of them stood a girl, whose appearance certainly answered ill to the high-flown descriptions Sir Gervais had given them of her beauty.
With the evident intention of making a favourable first impression, her grandfather had dressed her up in some faded relics of Mrs. Luttrel’s wardrobe: a blue silk dress, flounced and trimmed, reaching to her feet, while a bonnet of some extinct shape shadowed her face and concealed her hair, and a pair of satin boots, so large that they curved up, Turkish fashion, towards the toes, gave her the look rather of some wandering circus performer, than of a peasant child.
“Je la trouve affreusement laide!” said Lady Vyner, as her sister came forward and examined herewith a quiet and steady stare through her eye-glass.
“She is certainly nothing like the sketch he made, and still less like the description he gave of her,” said Georgina, in French. “What do you say, Sir Within?”
“There is something—not exactly beauty—about her,” said he, in the same language, “but something that, cultivated and developed, might possibly be attractive. Her eyes have a strange colour in them: they are grey, but they are of that grey that gets a tinge of amethyst when excited.”