Miss Northwick called upon Annie during the week, with excuses for her
delay and for coming alone. She seemed to have intentions of being polite;
but she constantly betrayed her want of interest in Annie, and disappointed
an expectation of refinement which her physical delicacy awakened. She
asked her how she ever came to take up the Social Union, and answered for
her that of course it had the attraction of the theatricals, and went on
to talk of her sister's part in them. The relation of the Northwick family
to the coming entertainment, and an impression of frail mottled wrists and
high thin cheeks, and an absence of modelling under affluent drapery, was
the main effect of Miss Northwick's visit.
When Annie returned it, she met the younger sister, whom she found a great
beauty. She seemed very cold, and of a _hauteur_ which she subdued
with difficulty; but she was more consecutively polite than her sister,
and Annie watched with fascination her turns of the head, her movements of
leopard swiftness and elasticity, the changing lights of her complexion,
the curves of her fine lips, the fluttering of her thin nostrils.
A very new basket phaeton stood glittering at Annie's door when she got
home, and Mrs. Wilmington put her head out of the open parlour window.
"How d'ye do, Annie?" she drawled, in her tender voice. "Won't you come in?
You see I'm in possession. I've just got my new phaeton, and I drove up at
once to crush you with it. Isn't it a beauty?"
"You're too late, Lyra," said Annie. "I've just come from the Northwicks,
and another crushing beauty has got in ahead of your phaeton."
"Oh, _poor_ Annie!" Lyra began to laugh with agreeable intelligence.
"_Do_ come in and tell me about it!"
"Why is that girl going to take part in the theatricals? She doesn't care
to please any one, does she?"
"I didn't know that people took part in theatricals for that, Annie. I
thought they wanted to please themselves and mortify others. _I_ do.
But then I may be different. Perhaps Miss Northwick wants to please Mr.
Brandreth."
"Do you mean it, Lyra?" demanded Annie, arrested on her threshold by the
charm of this improbability.
"Well, I don't know; they're opposites. But, upon second thoughts, you
needn't come in, Annie. I want you to take a drive with me, and try my new
phaeton," said Lyra, coming out.
Annie now looked at it with that irresolution of hers, and Lyra commanded:
"Get right in. We'll go down to the Works. You've never met my husband yet;
have you, Annie?"