Cora Gurney happened to meet both mother and daughter while making a round of calls with a friend, and she ran in to tell Dexie of the meeting.
"Your double is not very much like you after all, Dexie," she said. "Her figure and style of walking are remarkably like yours, even to the poise of her head; her hair, too, is almost the same shade; the eyes and upper part of the face are similar: but the mouth and chin are her own—they have no resemblance whatever to the true Dexie. It is the first sight that strikes one. When you look for the resemblance, it really seems slight enough, and when she begins to talk, my! the illusion vanishes at once, for really I do not think I ever met a person who irritated me as she did. She is a girl after the 'china doll' pattern, and can only use her brains at the direction of her mother. I do not think she ventured a remark of her own all the time I was there."
"Perhaps she did not have the chance," said Dexie, eager to champion the cause of her double. "Some girls are not allowed to have an opinion apart from the maternal idea of the fitness of things, and are kept down."
"Nonsense! If you had heard her talking, Dexie, I'm sure you would have felt like shaking her. It is only when her face is in repose that she resembles you in the least, for the moment she begins to talk, or even listen—or try to listen, one might say—she has the most senseless expression I ever saw on a woman's face."
"Goodness sake! bring me a looking-glass, quick! do, till I see what I look like when I talk. Does my face assume an idiotic expression when I am conversing? Be honest and tell me, for sweet charity's sake."
"Ease your mind, Dexie," said Cora, laughing. "Did I not say that there the resemblance ends? It is only when her face is at rest that the likeness can be seen at all. If you ask her the simplest question, she must refer to her mother for advice before she replies. For instance, I asked her if she liked Halifax. 'Do I like Halifax, mamma, do you think?' and she turned to her mother with such an affected simper. Really, I almost disliked her the moment she opened her mouth."
"I hope I shall get a chance to see her before we leave Halifax," said Dexie.
"Well, I asked her and her mother to call on mamma next week, almost on purpose for your benefit. Hugh is getting along so well I think mamma can receive some friends. I will let you know when they come."
A further acquaintance corroborated Cora's idea of Nina Gordon's brains. She seemed to have no mind of her own; a good thing, perhaps, in some cases, but a more spiritless person to talk to never vexed the heart of man or woman either. She had no answer for the simplest question without first asking it from her mother, and away from her mother's side she was uneasy and almost dumb.
The mother's idiosyncrasy was always to do "the correct thing." The fear of not doing it, or the dread of having done it unknowingly, was constantly before her—the bugbear that troubled her daily. Perhaps the daughter inherited the mother's dread, and her fear of doing or saying something that was not just "the correct thing" made her put all the responsibility of conversation on her mother's shoulder. Dexie was amused, as well as provoked, as she listened to the efforts at conversation which Cora vainly endeavored to sustain with her double, and it was evident that Mrs. Gurney also was surprised as well as amused at Mrs. Gordon's remarks.