“We shall make a summer day in the house to mama and Selina, that is—and to the children—and to Madame Marie Pauline Precoe Ascot, too, if she will let us; to the rest, whether she will or not.”
The coming in of the two children brightened their mother’s dim room like sunshine, and the more this time that they were not expected. It was early yet, and their mother was not dressed; but their sister sprang to meet them with a glad cry, and in a minute they were all rejoicing round their mother’s couch.
“A week of holidays, mama! Think of it, Lina! a whole week. I don’t in the least know how it happened. Somebody is going away or somebody is coming. It doesn’t matter; here we are. Isn’t it nice?”
And so they chattered on for a time, while their mother listened.
“Lina,” said Frederica, in a little, “stand up, and let me see how tall you are.”
Seeing her there in her mother’s room, you would never have supposed that Selina Vane was blind. Her eyes were a clear and lovely blue, well opened and bright. She walked about the room, not rapidly, but still lightly; not at all like one afraid. While going about the house and garden, she bent slightly forward, and walked with one hand held a little out before her; but here, in her mother’s dressing-room, she had no look of blindness. Her face was as bright and happy as her sister’s, and she rose at Frederica’s bidding, laughing and wondering a little. Her sister placed herself beside her, and measured the difference in their height with her hand. She shook her head gravely.
“There is a dreadful difference. I am a shockingly little creature; am I not, mama?”
She put on such a face of ludicrous dismay, that her mother could not but laugh.
“Mama, I am nearly fifteen. I ought to be a woman by this time, and really I am nothing but a child.”
She stood before a large dressing-glass, and surveyed herself discontentedly.