“It was not with him I played,” answered he, hesitatingly.
“What—-with the elder?”
“No, nor him either; my antagonist was a cousin—I think they called her cousin.”
“Called her,” said Sybella, slyly. “So then, Master Fred, there was a lady in the case. Well, we certainly have been a long while coming to her.”
“Yes, she has lately arrived—a day or two ago—from some convent in the Low Countries, where she has lived since she was a child.”
“A strange home for her,” interposed Sir Marmaduke. “If I do not misconceive them greatly, they must be very unsuitable associates for a young lady educated in a French convent.”
“So you would say, if you saw her,” said Fred, seizing with avidity at the opening, then offered, to coincide with an opinion he was half afraid to broach. “She is perfectly foreign in look, dress, and demeanour—with all the mannerism of Paris life, graceful and pleasing in her address; and they, at least one of them, a downright boor—the other, giving him credit for good looks and good nature, yet immeasurably her inferior in every respect.”
“Is she pretty, Frederic?” said Sybella, not lifting her eyes from her work as she spoke.
“I should say pretty,” replied he, with hesitation, as if qualifying his praise by a word which did not imply too much. “I prefer a quieter style of beauty, for my own part; less dazzle, less sparkling effect; something to see every day, and to like the better the more one sees it”—and he placed his arm around his sister's waist, and gazed at her as if to give the interpretation to his speech.
“You have made me quite curious to see her, Fred,” said Sybella. “The very fact of finding one like her in such a place has its interest.”