Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/41

 These things were intermingled with articles of modern furniture, in which liberal concession had been made to cultivated sensibilities; it was to be noticed that all the chairs were deep and well padded, and that much space was occupied by a writing-table of which the ingenious perfection bore the stamp of London and the nineteenth century. There were books in profusion, and magazines and newspapers, and a few small modern pictures, chiefly in water-colour. One of these productions stood on a drawing-room easel, before which, at the moment when we begin to be concerned with her, the young girl I have mentioned had placed herself. She was looking at the picture in silence.

Silence—absolute silence—had not fallen upon her companions; but their conversation had an appearance of embarrassed continuity. The two good sisters had not settled themselves in their respective chairs; their attitude was noticeably provisional, and they evidently wished to emphasise the transitory character of their presence. They were plain, comfortable, mild-faced women, with a kind of business-like modesty, to which the impersonal aspect of their stiffened linen and inexpressive serge gave an advantage. One of them, a person of a certain age, in spectacles, with a fresh complexion and a full cheek, had a more discriminating manner than her colleague, and had evidently the responsibility of their errand, which apparently related to the young girl. This young lady wore her hat—a coiffure of extreme simplicity, which was not at variance with a plain muslin gown, too short for the wearer, though it must already have been "let out." The gentleman who might have been supposed to be entertaining the two nuns was perhaps conscious of the difficulties of his function; to entertain a nun is, in fact, a sufficiently delicate operation. At the same time he was plainly much interested in his youthful companion,