Standing on her right hand, and bending affectionately over her, was a large, tall, finely-formed, fair-haired woman, whose ample dress of black velvet fell around her majestic figure like the robes of a queen or the drapery of a goddess.
“Madame, permit me to present to you my nephew, Mr. Montrose, of Dun-Ellen; the Princess Pezzilini, Mr. Montrose,” said Lady Leaton, respectfully presenting Malcolm to the stranger.
Malcolm bowed deeply and reverently, and expressed himself honored in making the acquaintance of the widow of the heroic Prince Pezzilini.
The lady, on her part, raised her stately head, smiled sweetly, curtsied silently, and immediately resumed her attention to the young girl in the chair. But in that single glimpse of her full face, Malcolm saw that she was of that rarest and strangest type of Italian beauty, a perfect blonde—fair, as though she had been born under the cool, damp fogs of England, instead of the burning sun of Italy; and, indeed, if the land of her birth had given her any of its fire, it was only to be seen in the warm and glowing smile that occasionally lighted up her face and beamed from her clear blue eyes.
Malcolm took in all these impressions during the few moments that were occupied in his presentation, and then he turned to greet the young lady in the easy-chair—his cousin Agatha.
He saluted her gravely and affectionately, as befitted the serious occasion of their meeting, and then, observing for the first time the extreme delicacy of her face and form, and the languor of her attitude and manner, Malcolm looked uneasy, and expressed a fear that she had been indisposed.
“No, she is not indisposed; that is, not seriously so; but she has not seemed quite well or strong since—since our great bereavement,” answered Lady Leaton, concluding the sentence in a faltering voice.
“Not well; no, indeed!” thought Malcolm, as he gazed with concern upon the fair, wan, spiritual face and fragile form of her whom he had left but a few months before the very picture of perfect health. “Not well, yet not seriously indisposed!” Was it possible that this great change could have come over Agatha so gradually that its effects should have escaped the eyes of even her own affectionate mother? Such must have been the case, was the thought of Malcolm, as he held the thin and wasted hand of the young girl in his own, and resolved that upon the next day he would certainly call the attention of Lady Leaton to the fearful change that, though it might have escaped the notice of those in daily communion with the invalid, while their attention had been absorbed by matters of such transcendent importance as the illness and death of Lord Leaton, yet was, withal, so marked and so alarming as to have shocked him who had left her six months before in full and blooming health.
While these thoughts engaged the mind of Malcolm, a soft footstep approached, and Lady Leaton spoke, saying—
“My niece, Eudora, Mr. Malcolm.”