A lady was standing in the porch, and, as the new-comers came forward, she stepped out to meet them.
“I am so glad to see you all safe,” she said in a bright, pleasant voice. “I must introduce myself, but you know who I am?”
“Miss Branksome,” said Nina, always the ready one on such occasions, probably because her mind was never over occupied with herself or her own concerns. But, with her usual tact, she stepped back a very little, leaving Lettice, as the eldest, to shake hands first with the lady-companion.
And Lettice, to her own surprise as she did so, found herself thinking, “How pretty she is! She is certainly not like a decayed gentlewoman.”
Miss Branksome was very pretty; some people might think it better to say “had been,” for she was more than middle-aged; she was almost elderly. Her hair was perfectly white, and her soft face had the faint delicate pink flush that comes to fair complexions with age, so different from the brilliant roses of youth. Her eyes were bright, but very gentle in expression, and her figure was daintily small.
“She looks like an old fairy,” Nina said afterwards, and the description was not a bad one.
Everything that genuine kindliness, based on thorough good principle, and aided by great natural tact, could do to make the orphans feel as happy in their new home as was possible for them, was done by Miss Branksome that first evening. Even Lettice succumbed to the pleasant influence. It was new for her to be taken care of, even, as it were, petted, and it came so naturally to the bright, kind-hearted, active little woman to make everybody about her happy, or at least comfortable, that she could not help trying her hand on even the redoubtable Miss Morison, as to whom Mr Auriol had given her some salutary warning.
“You must be so tired, my dears,” she said, with the smiles and tears struggling together at the same time, “I thought you would like tea better than anything; and perhaps—this first evening—would you like me to pour it out?”
It was perfectly impossible to stand on one’s dignity or to keep up any prejudice with one so genuine and single-minded; and Nina’s heart was relieved of an immense weight when they all went to bed that night.
For some time everything went better than could have been hoped. By dint of her simple goodness, by dint, perhaps, of in no way planning or scheming to get it, Miss Branksome unconsciously gained Lettice’s confidence; and when Mr Auriol came down to see his young charges two or three weeks after their arrival, he was most agreeably surprised by the happy state of things. Not being above human weakness, he could not help congratulating himself on the skill which he had displayed in an undoubtedly awkward situation, though, at the same time, he was only too ready to give credit to all concerned.