Page 88 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

from the extremity of handing her husband his cup. But the
two for the most part sat silent; the old man with his head
back and his eyes closed, his wife occupied with her knit-
ting and wearing that appearance of rare profundity with
which some ladies consider the movement of their needles.
One day, however, a visitor had arrived. The two young
persons, after spending an hour on the river, strolled back
to the house and perceived Lord Warburton sitting under
the trees and engaged in conversation, of which even at a
distance the desultory character was appreciable, with Mrs.
Touchett. He had driven over from his own place with a
portmanteau and had asked, as the father and son often in-
vited him to do, for a dinner and a lodging. Isabel, seeing
him for half an hour on the day of her arrival, had discov-
ered in this brief space that she liked him; he had indeed
rather sharply registered himself on her fine sense and she
had thought of him several times. She had hoped she should
see him again—hoped too that she should see a few others.
Gardencourt was not dull; the place itself was sovereign, her
uncle was more and more a sort of golden grandfather, and
Ralph was unlike any cousin she had ever encountered—her
idea of cousins having tended to gloom. Then her impres-
sions were still so fresh and so quickly renewed that there
was as yet hardly a hint of vacancy in the view. But Isabel
had need to remind herself that she was interested in hu-
man nature and that her foremost hope in coming abroad
had been that she should see a great many people. When
Ralph said to her, as he had done several times, ‘I wonder
you find this endurable; you ought to see some of the neigh-

88 The Portrait of a Lady