So much Lady Leaton learned from the portress; but she lost no time in delicately seeking the acquaintance of the beautiful and unfortunate exile.
She found the Princess Pezzilini very accessible to respectful sympathy. She learned from her some further particulars of her history—among other matters, that she had succeeded in securing from the burning palace a box of valuable family documents and a casket of costly family jewels. As, however, these jewels were heirlooms, she was unwilling to part with the least one of them until extreme want should actually compel her to do so; hence with almost boundless wealth at her command, she chose to live in poverty and privation. This was her story.
The lively imagination of Lady Leaton was affected by her beauty, sensibility and accomplishments. The good and benevolent heart of Lord Leaton was touched by her misfortunes, her courage, and her resignation. And the end of it was that they invited her to return with them to England, and make Allworth Abbey her home until the clouds that lowered over her House should be dispersed, and the sun should shine forth again.
They spent the autumn in Paris, and returned to Allworth Abbey just in time to prepare for Christmas.
And it was on Christmas-eve that the messenger to India returned, bringing with him Eudora Leaton. It was evening, and the family circle of Allworth Abbey, consisting of Lord and Lady Leaton, Miss Leaton, and the Princess Pezzilini, were assembled in the drawing-room, when Eudora was announced.
She entered, and her extreme beauty at once impressed the whole company.
It was a beauty that owed nothing to external circumstances, for she had arrived weary, sorrowful, and travel-stained; yet it was a beauty that sank at once into the very soul of the beholder, filling him with a strange delight. She was of medium height, and slender yet well-rounded form. Her graceful little head was covered with shining, jet-black ringlets, that fell around a face lovely as ever haunted the dream of poet or painter. Her features were regular; her complexion was a pure, clear olive, deepening into a rich bloom upon the oval cheeks, and a richer still upon the small full lips; her eyebrows were perfect arches of jet, tapering off to the finest points at the extremities; her eyes were large, dark and liquid, and fringed by the longest and thickest black lashes; her nose was small and straight; her mouth and chin faultlessly carved; her throat, neck and bust were rounded in the perfect contour of beauty; the whole outline of her form was ineffably beautiful. A poet would have said that her most ordinary motions might have been set to music, but to no music more melodious than the tones of her voice.
Such was the beautiful young Asiatic that stood trembling before her strange English relatives in the drawing-room of Allworth Abbey on Christmas-eve.
Lord Leaton was the first to arise and greet her.
“Welcome to England, my dearest Eudora,” he said, embracing her fondly; “think that you have come to your own home, and to your own father and mother, for after our daughter Agatha we shall love you best of all the world, as after her, you know, you are the next heiress of our name and estates.”