Lady Ombersley, meanwhile, standing as though rooted to her own doorstep, was realizing, with strong indignation, that the light in which a gentleman of great height and large proportions regarded his daughter had been misleading. Sir Horace’s little Sophy stood five feet nine inches in her stocking-feet, and was built on generous lines, a long-legged, deep-bosomed creature, with a merry face, and a quantity of glossy brown ringlets under one of the most dashing hats her cousins had ever seen. A pelisse was buttoned up to her throat, a very long sable stole was slipping from her shoulders, and she carried an enormous sable muff. This, however, she thrust into the second footman’s hands so that she was the better able to greet Amabel, who was the first to reach her. Her dazed aunt watched her stoop gracefully over the little girl, catching her hands, and saying laughingly, “Yes, yes, indeed I am your cousin Sophia, but pray won’t you call me Sophy? If anyone calls me Sophia I think I am in disgrace, which is a very uncomfortable thing. Tell me your name!”
“It’s Amabel, and oh, if you please, may I talk to the monkey?” stammered the youngest Miss Rivenhall.
“Of course you may, for I brought him for you. Only be a little gentle with him at first, because he is shy, you know.”
“Brought him for me?” gasped Amabel, quite pale with excitement.
“For you all,” said Sophy, embracing Gertrude and Theodore in her warm smile. “And also the parrot. Do you like pets better than toys and books? I always did, so I thought very likely you would too.”
“Cousin!” said Hubert, breaking in on the fervent assurances of his juniors that their new relative had gauged their tastes with an accuracy utterly unequaled in all their experience of adults. “Is that your horse?”
She turned, surveying him with a certain unselfconscious candor, the smile still lingering on her mouth. “Yes, that is Salamanca. Do you like him?”
“By Jove, I should think I do! Is he Spanish? Did you bring him from Portugal?”
“Cousin Sophy, what is your dear little dog’s name? What kind of a dog is it?”
“Cousin Sophy, can the parrot talk? Addy, may we keep it in the schoolroom?”