"But I took a good rise out of her all the same," says Molly to herself, as she slips from the room full of malicious laughter.
Before dinner—not sooner—Lady Stafford makes her appearance, and quite dazzles Molly with her beauty and the sweetness of her manner. She seems in the gayest spirits, and quite corroborates all Marcia has said about her exhibiting no symptoms of fatigue. Her voice, indeed, still retains its sad tone, but it is habitual to her, and does not interfere with the attractive liveliness of her demeanor, but only adds another charm to the many she already possesses.
She is taller than Tedcastle has led Molly to believe, and looks even smaller than she really is. Her eyelids droop at the corners, and give her a pensive expression that softens the laughter of her blue eyes. Her nose is small and clever, her mouth very merry, her skin exquisite, though devoid of the blue veins that usually go with so delicate a white, and her hair is a bright, rich gold. She is extremely lovely, and, what is far better, very pleasing to the eye.
"I am much better," she says, gayly, addressing Marcia, and then, turning to Molly, holds out to her a friendly hand.
"Miss Massereene, I know," she smiles, looking at her, and letting a pleased expression overspread her features as she does so. "Marcia told me of your arrival; I have heard of you also from other people; but their opinion I must reserve until I have become your friend. At all events, they did not lie in their description. No, you must not cross-examine me; I will not tell what they said."
She is a decided addition to the household; they all find her so. Even Mr. Longshanks brightens up, and makes a solitary remark at dinner; but, as nobody catches it, he is hardly as unhappy as otherwise assuredly he would have been.
After dinner she proves herself as agreeable in the drawing-room (during that wretched half-hour devoid of men) as she had been when surrounded by them, and chatters on to Marcia and Molly of all things possible and impossible.
Presently, however, the conversation drifting toward people of whose existence Molly has hitherto been unaware, she moves a little apart from the other two, and amuses herself by turning over a book of Byron's beauties; while wishing heartily those stupid men would weary of their wine,—vain wish!
By degrees the voices on the other sofa wax fainter and fainter, then rise with sudden boldness, as Marcia, secure in her French—says in that language, evidently in answer to some remark, "No; just conceive it,—she is totally uneducated, that is, in the accepted meaning of the word. The very morning after her arrival she confessed to me she knew nothing of French, nothing to signify of music, nothing, in fact, of anything."
"But her air, her whole bearing,—it is inconceivable," says Lady Stafford. "She must have had some education surely."