In the drawing-room at The Warren, Mrs Rolph, a handsome, dignified lady
of five-and-forty, was sitting back, with her brows knit, looking
frowningly at a young and pretty girl of nineteen, whose eyes were
puzzling, for in one light they seemed beautiful, in another shifting.
She was a Rosetti-ish style of girl, with too much neck, a tangle of
dark red hair, and lips of that peculiar pout seen in the above artist's
pictures, in conjunction with heavily-lidded eyes, and suggesting at one
moment infantile retraction from a feeding-bottle, at another parting
from the last kiss. There was a want of frankness in her countenance
that would have struck a stranger at once, till she spoke, when the
soft, winning coo of her voice proved an advocate which made the
disingenuous looks and words fade into insignificance.