Mrs. Espart proceeded to bring up the child born of this marriage precisely as she had herself been brought up,--in narrow cloisters, that is to say, in dutiful obedience and for the ultimate purpose of suitable marriage. She repeated in Dora's training the training she had received from her own mother, its object the same, with this difference--that whereas in her case that object was a wealthy match, in Dora's--Mr. Espart having made wealth unnecessary--it was position. Time was absurdly young for any plans when Mrs. Espart first met Lady Burdon, but plans had crossed her mind when she drove out to leave cards at the Manor: she had heard of Rollo. She made Lady Burdon very welcome when Lady Burdon came.
Dora was two years younger than Rollo, Lady Burdon found. When, on the occasion of this visit, she was brought to the drawing-room--a strikingly pretty child in a curiously unchildish way--she already showed marks of the machinery that ordered her life. She was curiously prim, that is to say, of noticeably trained deportment; curiously self-assured and yet not childishly frank; curiously correct of speech and with a dutiful trick of adding "Mamma" to every sentence she addressed to her mother.
She was her mother's child; similarly trained; similarly developing. "A very well brought-up child," as Lady Burdon afterwards commented to her husband, and noted in her also the strong promise of the beauty that later years were to realise. She was to be notably tall and was already slim and shot-up for her years; she was to be notably fair of complexion and showed already a wonderful mildness and whiteness of skin, curiously heightened by the little flush of colour that warmed in a sharply defined spot on either cheek. Lady Burdon rallied her once during their conversation--the subject was French lessons, which it appeared she found "Terribly puzzling, Lady Burdon, do I not, Mamma?" and her face responded by a curious deepening of the red shades, her cheeks and brow gaining a hue almost of transparency by contrast.
It was that quality and that characteristic that made Percival--meeting her when she was brought over to tea with Rollo--call her, as he told Ima, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red.