Miss Northwick called upon Annie during the week, with excuses for her
delay and for coming alone. She seemed to have intentions of being polite;
but she constantly betrayed her want of interest in Annie, and disappointed
an expectation of refinement which her physical delicacy awakened. She
asked her how she ever came to take up the Social Union, and answered for
her that of course it had the attraction of the theatricals, and went on
to talk of her sister's part in them. The relation of the Northwick family
to the coming entertainment, and an impression of frail mottled wrists and
high thin cheeks, and an absence of modelling under affluent drapery, was
the main effect of Miss Northwick's visit.

When Annie returned it, she met the younger sister, whom she found a great
beauty. She seemed very cold, and of a _hauteur_ which she subdued
with difficulty; but she was more consecutively polite than her sister,
and Annie watched with fascination her turns of the head, her movements of
leopard swiftness and elasticity, the changing lights of her complexion,
the curves of her fine lips, the fluttering of her thin nostrils.

A very new basket phaeton stood glittering at Annie's door when she got
home, and Mrs. Wilmington put her head out of the open parlour window.

"How d'ye do, Annie?" she drawled, in her tender voice. "Won't you come in?
You see I'm in possession. I've just got my new phaeton, and I drove up at
once to crush you with it. Isn't it a beauty?"