to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so held her as this little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who retrieved an insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked with striking familiarity of the courts of Europe. There was nothing flighty about Mrs Touchett, but she recognized no social superiors, and judging the great ones of the earth in a way that spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel at first had answered a good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently that Mrs Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence. But after this she had asked a good many, and her aunt’s answers, whatever turn they took, struck her as food for deep reflexion. Mrs Touchett waited for the return of her other niece as long as she thought reasonable, but as at six o’clock Mrs Ludlow had not come in she prepared to take her departure.

‘Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying out so many hours?’

‘You’ve been out almost as long as she,’ Isabel replied; ‘she can have left the house but a short time before you came in.’

Mrs Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious. ‘Perhaps she hasn’t had so good an excuse as I. Tell her at any rate that she must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel. She may bring her husband if she likes, but she needn’t bring you. I shall see plenty of you later.’