On the day she left London, Herminia thought to herself she had

never seen her child look so absolutely lovely. The unwonted union

of blue eyes with that olive-gray skin gave a tinge of wayward

shyness to her girlish beauty. The golden locks had ripened to

nut-brown, but still caught stray gleams of nestling sunlight.

'Twas with a foreboding regret that Herminia kissed Dolly on both

peach-bloom cheeks at parting. She almost fancied her child must

be slipping from her motherly grasp when she went off so blithely

to visit these unknown friends, away down in Dorsetshire. Yet

Dolly had so few amusements of the sort young girls require that

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Herminia was overjoyed this opportunity should have come to her.

She reproached herself not a little in her sensitive heart for even

feeling sad at Dolly's joyous departure. Yet to Dolly it was a

delight to escape from the atmosphere of Herminia's lodgings.

Those calm heights chilled her.

The Compsons' house was quite as "grand" in the reality as Dolly

had imagined it. There was a man-servant in a white tie to wait at

table, and the family dressed every evening for dinner. Yet, much

to her surprise, Dolly found from the first the grandeur did not in

the least incommode her. On the contrary, she enjoyed it. She

felt forthwith she was to the manner born. This was clearly the

life she was intended by nature to live, and might actually have

been living--she, the granddaughter of so grand a man as the late

Dean of Dunwich--had it not been for poor Mamma's ridiculous

fancies. Mamma was so faddy! Before Dolly had spent three whole

days at the rectory, she talked just as the Compsons did; she

picked up by pure instinct the territorial slang of the county

families. One would have thought, to hear her discourse, she had

dressed for dinner every night of her life, and passed her days in

the society of the beneficed clergy.

But even that did not exhaust the charm of Upcombe for Dolly. For

the first time in her life, she saw something of men,--real men,

with horses and dogs and guns,--men who went out partridge shooting

in the season and rode to hounds across country, not the pale

abstractions of cultured humanity who attended the Fabian Society

meetings or wrote things called articles in the London papers. Her

mother's friends wore soft felt hats and limp woollen collars; these

real men were richly clad in tweed suits and fine linen. Dolly was

charmed with them all, but especially with one handsome and manly

young fellow named Walter Brydges, the stepson and ward of a

neighboring parson. "How you talked with him at tennis to-day!"

Winnie Compson said to her friend, as they sat on the edge of

Dolly's bed one evening. "He seemed quite taken with you."




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