“I don’t know,” Madeleine went on. “The way they have lived may make them extra shy—proud—I don’t know what to call it!—ungetatable. But I promise you to do my best, and that carefully in every way. I don’t want mamma to begin warning me against flying into sudden friendships!—at my age it is absurd; but then, mamma never remembers that I am no longer in my first youth.”
As she said the words, something in her mind seemed to contradict them, and gradually she recalled what gave her this feeling. It was the remembrance of her mother’s remark the afternoon that Mr Morion had called, as to her no longer having the excuse of “early youth” for thinking she could set other people to rights.
“I wonder what made her say that?” thought Madeleine to herself, but Horace’s next words put the subject out of her head.
“I don’t think you need anticipate any holding back on their side,” he said. “Certainly not on the part of—two of them. The youngest is almost childlike, and the eldest, oh! she is really charming and out of the common. I am sure you will take to her.”
“And why do you except the middle one?” asked Madeleine.
“I don’t feel as if I could judge of her,” he said indifferently. “She seems a changeable sort of girl.”
“And they are all pretty, more or less, I think you said?” continued his sister.
“I don’t know that I did say so, though—well, yes, I suppose they are. But Miss Morion is the sort of person whose looks you forget in what you feel she must be in herself, and the others—they really are so atrociously dressed!” he broke off rather ruefully, and yet with a little laugh. “You won’t be hypercritical, Maddie, but I don’t know about my mother.”
Madeleine was standing looking out of the window by this time. For a midwinter day it bade fair to be a very pleasant one. The sky was clear, though the lights were thin, and in the air there was a decided touch of frost.
“I am glad to be here at last,” she said. “You are not doing anything to-day, I hope, Horace—shooting or anything? For I want you to show me all over the place.”