‘Paulina is very pretty, don’t you think?’ and see what she would
say. But I couldn’t. Cousin Delia would always know what you
were really meaning if you tried to say something else.
Once she touched my hand.
‘I like that dress of yours, dear heart,’ she said. ‘Did Mollie
help you to choose it?’
Cousin Delia was very fond of Mollie, and Mollie loved her. We
were all glad about that.
Guy and Mollie came up to us. I thought how pretty Mollie looked
that night, more as she ought to look always, and I thought I
would rather look like Mollie than Paulina, in spite of everything.
Hugo brought Paulina to Campden Hill that summer. Grandmother
did not like her.
‘No, my dear Hugo,’ she said afterwards. ‘Not a suitable young
woman, in my opinion. Unintelligent and pretentious. I advise
you to leave her alone.’
Hugo blushed and smiled.
‘I am sorry, Aunt Gerry,’ he said. ‘I am sorry you don’t like
her.’
‘It may have been a mistake to say what I did,’ she said afterwards
to me, ‘but I don’t think so. _Épris_, I think—distinctly _épris_—but
not _inamorato_.’