Mildred only saw her full face when she rose to take leave: her figure was very graceful, but her features could hardly be termed beautiful; though the dead brown hair, with its waves of ripples, and the large brilliant eyes, made her a decidedly striking-looking girl.
Mildred, who was somewhat Quaker-like in her taste, thought the cream-coloured silk, with its ruby velvet facings, somewhat out of place in their homely vicarage, though the Rubens hat was wonderfully picturesque; it seemed less incongruous when Miss Trelawny remarked casually that they were on their way to a garden-party.
'Do you like archery? Papa is thinking of getting up a club for the neighbourhood,' she said, looking at Mildred as she spoke. In spite of their dark brilliancy there was a sad, wistful look in her eyes that somehow haunted Mildred. They looked like eyes that were demanding sympathy from a world that failed to understand them.
It was not to be expected that Mildred would be prepossessed by Miss Trelawny in a first visit. Not for weeks, nor for long afterwards, did she form a true estimate of her visitor, or learn the idiosyncrasies of a character at once peculiar and original.
People never understood Ethel Trelawny. There were subtle difficulties in her nature that baffled and repelled them. 'She was odd,' they said, 'so unusual altogether, and said such queer things;' a few even hinted that it was possible that a part might sometimes be acted.
Miss Trelawny was nineteen now, and had passed through two London seasons with indifferent success, a fact somewhat surprising, as her attractions certainly were very great. Without being exactly beautiful, she yet gave an impression of beauty, and certain tints of colour and warm lights made her at times almost brilliant. In a crowded ballroom she was always the centre of observation; but one by one her partners dropped off, displeased and perplexed by the scarifying process to which they had been subjected.
'People come to dance and not to think,' observed one young cornet, turning restive under such treatment, and yet obstinate in his admiration of Ethel. He had been severely scorched during a previous dance, but had returned to the charge most gallantly; 'the music is delicious; do take one more turn with me; there is a clear space now.'