"Will you take me now? I think I know—I mean I've seen your aunt already."
"She is a very remarkable person. She can be more terrifying—and more tender, than any woman in the world. Utterly fearless, something of a tyrant—possibly because she has never been denied anything she wanted in her life. She simply doesn't accept denials. If she had been a man she might have been a Pitt, or a Napoleon. As she is, she is a mixture of Queen Elizabeth—and Queen Victoria."
The amazing individual, described by this brief biographical preface, who was still enthroned on the coquettish little French couch, and who was now consuming a pink ice with naïve relish, was indeed the old lady in purple—otherwise, Miss Elizabeth Bancroft, of Lowry House (for some reason she had always been given this somewhat English style of designation; possibly because she was the last of her name to be identified with the magnificent collections for which Lowry House, the American roof-tree of aristocratic English colonists, had been famous for more than a hundred years).
As Nancy stood before her, she looked up at the girl keenly, her little blue eyes diminished in size by the thick lenses of her pince-nez. Then she handed her ice to Mr. Arnold without even glancing at him, and held out both her plump white hands to Nancy. Her whole face softened, with the dimpling, comfortable smile of a motherly old nurse.
"Oh, my dear child—if you were only a boy I could believe you were George again—my George, your father—not this young rascal. Come, sit down beside me. I shan't keep you long. Have you been having a good time, my dear?"
She was not a terrible old lady at all. On the contrary, with wonderful skill, with cosy, affectionate little ways, with her jolly laugh, and her droll stories, she had succeeded in less time than it takes to tell in completely winning Nancy to her. And somehow, although she appeared to be doing all the talking herself, although she touched so lightly and so adroitly that she hardly seemed to touch at all on any topic that was delicately personal to the girl, she had managed within a brief five minutes to glean a hundred little facts, which, by piecing together in her keen old mind, gave her more knowledge concerning the Prescotts than another person could have come by in a week's diligent pumping.
"George, my dear——"
"Yes, Aunt Eliza."
"Oh, nothing. I wish to goodness you were a woman. It just occurred to me that you can't possibly understand what I was going to say to you, so never mind about listening to me. Smoke, if you want to, and let me think in peace."
"Very well." From Mr. Arnold's docile submissiveness it might be surmised that he, too, wanted to think in peace. Miss Bancroft's lumbering, impressive coupé rumbled along over the wet roads toward Lowry House; its two occupants buried in that mood of silence which only two very sympathetic beings know how to respect. Presently Miss Bancroft burst out: