"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You
still look very pale--and so thin! Poor child!--poor girl!"
Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She
possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face
seemed to me fill of charm. Mary's countenance was equally
intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her expression was
more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana
looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will,
evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an
authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and
self-respect permitted, to an active will.
"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your
place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we
like to be free, even to license--but you are a visitor, and must go
into the parlour."
"I am very well here."
"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with
flour."
"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.
"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient." And
still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner
room.
"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our
things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we
exercise in our little moorland home--to prepare our own meals when
we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or
ironing."
She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat
opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the
parlour, and then its occupant.
The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet
comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were
very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A
few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days
decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained
some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous
ornament in the room--not one modern piece of furniture, save a
brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a
side-table: everything--including the carpet and curtains--looked
at once well worn and well saved.
Mr. St. John--sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the
walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips
mutely sealed--was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue
instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young--
perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty--tall, slender; his face riveted
the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a
straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is
seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as
did his. He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of
my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and
blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was
partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.