At this voice every one starts! Mona, slipping her hand into Geoffrey's, draws him to one side; Lady Rodney rises from her sofa, and Sir Nicholas goes eagerly towards the door.
"You have come!" cries he, in a tone Mona has never heard before, and then—there is no mistake about the fact that he and the shadow have embraced each other heartily.
"Yes, we have indeed," says the same sweet voice again, which is the merriest and softest voice imaginable, "and in very good time too, as it seems. Nolly and I have been here for fully five minutes, and have been so delighted with what we have seen that we positively could not stir. Dear Lady Rodney, how d'ye do?"
She is a very little girl, quite half a head shorter than Mona, and, now that one can see her more plainly as she stands on the hearthrug, something more than commonly pretty.
Her eyes are large and blue, with a shade of green in them; her lips are soft and mobile; her whole expression is debonnaire, yet full of tenderness. She is brightness itself; each inward thought, be it of grief or gladness, makes itself outwardly known in the constant changes of her face. Her hair is cut above her forehead, and is quite golden, yet perhaps it is a degree darker than the ordinary hair we hear described as yellow. To me, to think of Dorothy Darling's head is always to remind myself of that line in Milton's "Comus," where he speaks of
"The loose train of thy amber-drooping hair."
She is very sweet to look at, and attractive and lovable.
"Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place."
Such is Nicholas's betrothed, to whom, as she gazes on her, all at once, in the first little moment, Mona's whole soul goes out.
She has shaken hands with everybody, and has kissed Lady Rodney, and is now being introduced to Mona.