Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/51

 lindrical stems. Ella examined the photographs in vain for familiar faces until she came upon one of herself taken by Reutlinger in 1889.

She passed on into the dining-room where she was glad¥ to convince herself that the steel-engravings of Thorwaldsen's bas-reliefs, Night and Morning, in carved gold frames with red plush mats, still graced the walls. In every room the pictures were hung so high that one had to gaze upwards to see them.

It's nice to be home again. . . . Ella was trying to make herself believe this. . . . I wish father were with us. I'm glad to see you again, Lou.

She kissed her sister's faded and sallow cheek, smoothed the whitened, straggling hair, parted in the centre and bound in the back in a nondescript knot. Lou accepted these attentions shyly. She was not accustomed to them; demonstrativeness of any nature whatever was entirely foreign to her character. She was glad to see Ella, proud to have her home, but she did not say so. Constantly in the back of her mind she was repeating to herself the fact that Ella's ways were different and that she must get used to them. But the others—her friends in Maple Valley—how would they take Ella?

The Countess drew her sister back into the parlour and they seated themselves on a great upholstered couch placed against a corner of the room