Part 4, Chapter XXXI.
Relations New and Old.
“The world is full of other folks.”
The Gayworthys.
It was a wintry morning, with pale sunshine struggling through the retiring fog. In the centre of the Greys’ pretty drawing-room, among all the ottomans, tables, and nick-knacks, stood Violante. She wore a dark-blue serge dress, with a linen collar and a little red necktie—attire intended by Rosa to be scrupulously that of a young English lady. Nor was the short hair, tied back with a ribbon, so unusual as to be peculiar. Yet she looked, as she stood glancing around, half shy, half observant, something like a hare in a flower-garden, just ready to dash away. In consideration of the fatigue of her journey, which had ended late the night before, she had had her breakfast upstairs, and was now really making and receiving her first impressions.
Rosa and Beatrice Grey were talking fast to each other in a rapid exchange of question and answer; while the aunt and younger cousins were studying this soft-eyed, fawnlike creature, so utterly unlike their self-possessed selves.
“So, my dear,” said her aunt kindly, “we have got you here at last. And you must tell the girls all you like best to do, that they may be able to amuse you.”
“I do not know what anyone does here exactly,” said Violante, afraid of her own voice, as she wondered if her English was very foreign.
“Hasn’t Rosa told you how we all get on?” said Kitty.
“Yes,” said Violante. “I thought I knew—but, after all, I did not imagine it.”
Kitty laughed kindly.