That he should have
resorted to this recreation at the present time indicated apparently
that his anxiety about his father had been relieved; so that the
girl took her way, almost with restored cheer, toward the source of
the harmony. The drawing-room at Gardencourt was an apartment of great
distances, and, as the piano was placed at the end of it furthest
removed from the door at which she entered, her arrival was not
noticed by the person seated before the instrument. This person was
neither Ralph nor his mother; it was a lady whom Isabel immediately
saw to be a stranger to herself, though her back was presented to
the door. This back- an ample and well-dressed one- Isabel viewed
for some moments with surprise. The lady was of course a visitor who
had arrived during her absence and who had not been mentioned by
either of the servants- one of them her aunt's maid- of whom she had
had speech since her return. Isabel had already learned, however, with
what treasures of reserve the function of receiving orders may be
accompanied, and she was particularly conscious of having been treated
with dryness by her aunt's maid, through whose hands she had slipped
perhaps a little too mistrustfully and with an effect of plumage but
the more lustrous.
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