Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/80

68 prodigious height, like an old play-house, and we went down again to the stupid or surly porter. He came upstairs very unwillingly, and pointed to a deep recess between the stairs and the folding-doors: "Allez! voilà la porte; tirez la sonnette." He and his candle went down, and my father had just time to seize the handle of the bell, when we were again in darkness. After ringing this feeble bell, we presently heard doors open and little footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill-set-up wavering candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face and figure. Her face was remarkably intelligent, dark sparkling eyes, dark hair, curled in the most fashionable long corkscrew ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. She parted the ringlets to take a full view of us, and we were equally impatient to take a full view of her. The dress of her figure by no means suited the head and the elegance of her attitude. What her "nether weeds" might be we could not distinctly see, but they seemed to be a coarse, short petticoat, like what Molly Bristow's children would wear, not on Sundays; a woollen grey spencer above, pinned with a single pin by the lapels tight across the neck under the chin, and open all below. After surveying us and hearing that our name was Edgeworth, she smiled graciously, and bid us follow her, saying. "Maman est chez elle." She led the way with the grace of a young lady who has been taught to dance, across two ante-chambers, miserable-looking, but, miserable or not, no house in Paris can be without them. The girl, or young lady, for we were still in doubt which to think her, led us into a small room, in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black who rose from her arm-chair by the fireside as the door opened; a great puff of smoke came from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, chairs, and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and inkstands, and bird-cages, and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle I could not see her face, nor anything but the outline of her form and her attitude. Her form was the remains of a fine form, and her attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. I, being foremost, and she silent, was compelled to speak to the figure in darkness: "Madame de Genlis nous a fait l'honneur de nous mander qu'elle roulait bien nous permettre de lui rendre visite, et de lui offrir nos respects," said I, or words to that effect; to which she replied by taking my band, and saying something in which "charmée" was the most intelligible word. Whilst she spoke she looked over my shoulder at my father, whose bow, I presume, told her he was a gentleman, for she spoke to him immediately as if she wished to