speedily acquired, that her aunt was
too entirely devoid of dignity to be reticent
upon any subject which it entered her head
to discuss, Maud looked forward with
nervous dread to the introduction of Mrs.
Lockwood into Lady Tallis's drawing-room.

CHAPTER II. THE LOCKWOODS.

ZILLAH LOCKWOOD was a very remarkable-looking
woman. It was not merely the
smallness of her stature that made her so.
She was, as Lady Tallis had said, extremely
fragile and fairy-like, with very delicate,
well-formed hands and feet, and an upright
straight figure. But this small frail creature
conveyed an almost startling impression of
power and resolution: power of an
undemonstrative, steady, suppressed kind.

"How enchantingly pretty Mrs. Lockwood
must have been!" was the exclamation
of nine people out of ten after seeing
her for the first time.

Those who remembered Zillah Lockwood
in her youth, declared that she had been
enchantingly pretty. But it may be doubted
whether she had ever been so, in the strict
sense of the word. There could be no
doubt, however, that hers must always
have been a singularly attractive face.
And it was perhaps even more generally
attractive at fifty years of age than it had
been at twenty. She had an abundance of
grey hair, soft, fine, and carefully dressed.
Her forehead was low and broad; her eyes
were black and sparkling, but their lids were
discoloured, and there was a faded, weary
look about the whole setting and surrounding
of her eyes that contrasted with the
fresh delicate paleness of the rest of her
complexion.

"Crying spoils the eyes. Years ago I
cried, almost incessantly, for six weeks,"
she once said, quietly, to one who remarked
this peculiarity of her face. " At last they
told me that I was risking total loss of
sight. So then I got frightened, and left
off weeping— with my eyes."

Her jaw was slightly what is called
under-hung, and when the lips met and
closed firmly (as they habitually did when
her face was in repose), this peculiarity
gave an expression of singular resolution
to her mouth. It looked as though it were
forcibly compressed by a special effort of
her will. The upper lip was thin and
straight. When she spoke, she showed
two perfect ranges of small sharp teeth.

Her whole person was pervaded by an
air of scrupulous and dainty neatness. She
always wore black, and her head was
adorned, not covered, by a white muslin
cap, whose crisply-frilled border of delicate
lace was a marvel of freshness. The collar
at her throat and the cuffs at her wrists
were of plain linen in the morning, of lace
in the evening, and in either case were
guiltless of soil or stain.

"How she does it in this smoky London
is more than I can conceive!" would poor
Lady Tallis exclaim, casting a pathetic
glance on her own dingy and crumpled
garments. But her ladyship was one of
those unfortunate persons for whose clothes
dust and smoke and stains seem to have a
mysterious attraction. "Smuts" flew to
her collar, and settled there fondly. Dust
eddied round her in suffocating clouds
whenever she ventured into the streets, or
else she found herself wading ankle-deep
in mud. Gravy splashed itself over her
sleeves at dinner; ink pervaded her attire
when she wrote a letter; and the grease
from lamp or candle dropped on her silk
gown with a frequency which almost
seemed to argue conscious malice.

The first impression which Maud
Desmond derived from Mrs. Lockwood's
appearance and manner was a sense of relief.

She had half expected a vulgar, bustling,
good-natured, noisy woman. Maud had
gained sufficient knowledge of Lady Tallis
to be aware that her perceptions were not
acute, nor her taste refined. Indeed Maud, in
pondering upon her aunt's character, was
frequently brought face to face with problems,
the pursuit of which would have led
her into deeper speculations than she
contemplated attempting. Why was this
woman, gently born and bred, endowed with
blunter sensibilities, duller brains, coarser
—yes, truly coarser—manners than the
poor widow of a humble artist, who sprang
from mean obscurity and eked out her
living as a letter of lodgings? Why, of
the two sisters, Hilda and Clara Delaney,
had one been a refined, graceful, elegant
gentlewoman, and the other—such a woman
as Lady Tallis? Maud remembered her
mother, and contrasted her bearing and
manners with Lady Tallis's. Had Clara
Desmond pronounced any woman to be
kind, thoughtful, and well-mannered, those
persons who knew the speaker would have
expected the object of her praise to be one
whose society might be pleasant to the
most fastidious. But when Hilda Tallis
used the same phrases, Maud perfectly
understood that they must be accepted with
due reservations.