Miss Vanhorn did not come to see her niece until a week had passed. Anne had been assigned to the lowest French class among the children, had taken her first singing lesson from one Italian, fat, rosy, and smiling, and her first Italian lesson from another, lean, old, and soiled, had learned to answer questions in the Moreau French, and to talk a little, as well as to comprehend the fact that her clothes were remarkable, and that she herself was considered an oddity, when one morning Tante sent word that she was to come down to the drawing-room to see a visitor.
The visitor was an old woman with black eyes, a black wig, shining false teeth, a Roman nose, and a high color (which was, however, natural), and she was talking to Tante, who, with her own soft gray hair, and teeth which if false did not appear so, looked charmingly real beside her. Miss Vanhorn was short and stout; she was muffled in an India shawl, and upon her hands were a pair of cream-colored kid gloves much too large for her, so that when she fumbled, as she did every few moments, in an embroidered bag for aromatic seeds coated with sugar, she had much difficulty in finding them, owing to the empty wrinkled ends of the glove fingers. She lifted a gold-rimmed eye-glass to her eyes as Anne entered, and coolly inspected her.
"Dear me! dear me!" she said. Then, in execrable French, "What can be done with such a young savage as this?"
"How do you do, aunt?" said Anne, using the conventional words with a slight tremor in her voice. This was the woman who had brought up her mother--her dear, unremembered mother.
"Grandaunt," said Miss Vanhorn, tartly. "Sit down; I can not bear to have people standing in front of me. How old are you?"
[Illustration: "DEAR ME, WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH SUCH A YOUNG SAVAGE?"]
Miss Vanhorn let her eyeglass drop, and groaned. "_Can_ anything be done with her?" she asked, closing her eyes tightly, and turning toward Tante, while Anne flushed crimson, not so much from the criticism as the unkindness.
"Oh yes," said Tante, taking the opportunity given by the closed eyes to pat the young girl's hand encouragingly. "Miss Douglas is very intelligent; and she has a fine mezzo-soprano voice. Signor Belzini is much pleased with it. It would be well, also, I think, if you would allow her to take a few dancing lessons."