It might have been the room of two young girls and, before she
fluttered down to tea, Henrietta took another glance at the mass of
yellow tulle on her own bed. She wished Mrs. Banks and Miss Stubb
could see her in that dress. Mrs. Banks would cry and Miss Stubb would
grow poetical. She would have to write and tell them all about it. At
eight o'clock the four Miss Malletts assembled in the drawing-room.
Caroline was magnificent. Old lace veiled the shimmering satin of her
gown and made it possible to wear the family emeralds: these, heavily
set, were on her neck and in her ears; a pair of bracelets adorned her
arms. Seen from behind, she might have been the stout and prosperous
mother of a family in her prime and only when she turned and displayed
the pink patches on yellow skin, was her age discernible. She was
magnificent, and terrible, and Henrietta had a moment of recoil before
she gasped, 'Oh, Aunt Caroline, how lovely!'
Sophia advanced more modestly for inspection. 'She looks about
twenty-one!' Caroline exclaimed. 'What a figure! Like a girl's!'
'You're prejudiced, dear Caroline. I never had your air. You're
wonderful.'
'We're all wonderful!' Henrietta cried.
They had all managed to express themselves: Caroline in the superb
attempt at overcoming her age, and Sophia in the softness of her
apparel; Rose, in filmy black and pearls round her firm throat, gently
proud and distant; and Henrietta was like some delicately gaudy
insect, dancing hither and thither, approaching and withdrawing.
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