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reasons, quite apart from your liking it. I shouldn’t think
you’d like it, but I recommend you to make the sacrifice. Of
course whatever novelty there may have been at first in my
society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am—a
dull, obstinate, narrow-minded old woman.’
‘I don’t think you’re at all dull,’ Isabel had replied to
this.
‘But you do think I’m obstinate and narrow-minded? I
told you so!’ said Mrs. Touchett with much elation at being
justified.
Isabel remained for the present with her aunt, because,
in spite of eccentric impulses, she had a great regard for
what was usually deemed decent, and a young gentle-
woman without visible relations had always struck her as a
flower without foliage. It was true that Mrs. Touchett’s con-
versation had never again appeared so brilliant as that first
afternoon in Albany, when she sat in her damp waterproof
and sketched the opportunities that Europe would offer to
a young person of taste. This, however, was in a great mea-
sure the girl’s own fault; she had got a glimpse of her aunt’s
experience, and her imagination constantly anticipated the
judgements and emotions of a woman who had very little
of the same faculty. Apart from this, Mrs. Touchett had a
great merit; she was as honest as a pair of compasses. There
was a comfort in her stiffness and firmness; you knew ex-
actly where to find her and were never liable to chance
encounters and concussions. On her own ground she was
perfectly present, but was never over-inquisitive as regards
the territory of her neighbour. Isabel came at last to have a

310 The Portrait of a Lady