The delicacy of the latter was made perhaps a little
excessive by strain of feelings. Alice at once came to the
conclusion that Dick's future wife was cold and supercilious. She
was not predisposed to like Adela. The circumstances were in a
number of ways unfavourable. Even had there not existed the very
natural resentment at the painful task which this young lady had
indirectly imposed upon her, it was not in Alice's blood and
breeding to take kindly at once to a girl of a class above her own.
Alice had warm affections; as a lady's maid she might very
conceivably have attached herself with much devotion to an indulgent
mistress, but in the present case too much was asked of her, Richard
was proud of his sister; he saw her at length seated where he had so
often imagined her, and in his eyes she bore herself well. He
glanced often at Adela, hoping for a return glance of
congratulation; when it failed to come, he consoled himself with the
reflection that such silent interchange of sentiments at table would
be ill manners. In his very heart he believed that of the two
maidens his sister was the better featured. Adela and Alice sat over
against each other; their contrasted appearances were a chapter of
social history. Mark the difference between Adela's gently closed
lips, every muscle under control; and Alice's, which could never
quite close without forming a saucy pout or a self-conscious
primness.
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