Mrs. Stanton laughed. She was well pleased with her daughter's simple, ingenuous remark.
"Ah, you are a flatterer, I fear," she said, lightly; "but really your appearance is not altogether flattering. I did not expect to see such a woman. You make me feel quite old. Let me see—what is your age, by the by?"
"I was twenty-one last March," said Aldyth, a little surprised that her mother should need to ask.
"Ah, to be sure, I had forgotten," said Mrs. Stanton, carelessly, "and Gladys is just nineteen. But now Mr. Stanton will be impatient to see you, and you have yet to make the acquaintance of Cecil and Nelly. Come, darling."
So saying she led the way to the sitting room.
Mr. Stanton did not look as if he were impatient to see Aldyth or any one. He was a weary-looking man, with bald head and stooping shoulders. His manner was singularly nervous and shy, and though he greeted Aldyth not unkindly, he seemed to have nothing to say to her. But his wife was well able to supply his lack of words. She talked both for him and for herself.
"I have been telling Aldyth how anxious you were to see her, Robert. Now, is she what you expected? Not at all like me, is she? No, she resembles her father. It is very strange that not one of my girls is really like me. Gladys resembles me most; but then she is fair, like your family, and her features are not like mine. I often wonder how it is that people will persist in saying she is like me. Oh, here is Nelly! Come, Nelly, and let me introduce you to your sister Aldyth."
Nelly appeared by no means desirous of the introduction. She was a big, awkward girl of fifteen, dark, heavy-browed and somewhat sullen-looking; but with good eyes, and a certain resemblance to her handsome mother, although she was undeniably plain. She seemed to have inherited her father's nervous, shy manner. She shook hands with Aldyth without looking at her, and rushed away to the further end of the room, where, hidden by a curtain, she leaned on a window sill and watched the outer world.
Cecil did not appear till dinner was on the table. He was a good-looking lad of seventeen, bright and pleasant in manner, though somewhat foppish in his person, and not without the conceit common to youths of his age. Still, Aldyth felt that she should like him when she knew him better. But all her impressions that evening seemed vague and unreal. She felt like one in a dream as she sat listening to the talk that went on, and replying to the remarks addressed to her.
Mrs. Stanton, as seemed to be her habit, not only spoke for herself, but said everything that her husband should said, whilst he, sitting opposite to her, silent and melancholy, occasionally murmured an assent. She had many questions to ask respecting Woodham and various families residing in the vicinity, to which Miss Lorraine was only too pleased to make full replies.