They were not all in black, of course; but the sombreness of Lucy's clothes struck Fanny much more than her own. They seemed to have swallowed her up in their blackness, and to have made her almost an emblem of death. She did not look up, but kept her face turned toward the fire, and seemed almost afraid of her position.
"She may say what she likes, Fanny," said Mark, "but she is very cold. And so am I—cold enough. You had better go up with her to her room. We won't do much in the dressing way to-night; eh, Lucy?"
In the bedroom Lucy thawed a little, and Fanny, as she kissed her, said to herself that she had been wrong as to that word "plain." Lucy, at any rate, was not plain.
"You will be used to us soon," said Fanny, "and then I hope we shall make you comfortable." And she took her sister-in-law's hand and pressed it.
Lucy looked up at her, and her eyes then were tender enough. "I am sure I shall be happy here," she said, "with you. But—but—dear papa!" And then they got into each other's arms, and had a great bout of kissing and crying. "Plain," said Fanny to herself, as at last she got her guest's hair smoothed and the tears washed from her eyes—"plain! She has the loveliest countenance that I ever looked at in my life!"
"Your sister is quite beautiful," she said to Mark, as they talked her over alone before they went to sleep that night.
"No, she's not beautiful, but she's a very good girl, and clever enough too, in her sort of way."
"I think her perfectly lovely. I never saw such eyes in my life before."
"I'll leave her in your hands, then; you shall get her a husband."
"That mayn't be so easy. I don't think she'd marry any body."
"Well, I hope not. But she seems to me to be exactly cut out for an old maid—to be aunt Lucy forever and ever to your bairns."
"And so she shall, with all my heart. But I don't think she will, very long. I have no doubt she will be hard to please, but if I were a man I should fall in love with her at once. Did you ever observe her teeth, Mark?"
"I don't think I ever did."
