THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 243 his little daughter with him, and Isabel was delighted to renew acquaintance with the child, who, as she presented her forehead to be kissed by every member of the circle, reminded her vividly of an ingenue in a French play. Isabel had never seen a young girl of this pattern ; American girls were very different different too were the daughters of England. This young lady was so neat, so complete in her manner ; and yet in character, as one could see, so innocent and infantine. She sat on the sofa, by Isabel; she wore a small grenadine mantle and a pair of the useful gloves that Madame Merle had given her little grey gloves, with a single button. She was like a sheet of blank paper the ideal jeune fille of foreign fiction. Isabel hoped that so fair and smooth a page would be covered with an edifying text. The Countess Gemini also came to call upon her, but the Countess was quite another affair. She was by no means a blank sheet ; she had been written over in a variety of hands, and Mrs. Touchett, who felt by no means honoured by her visit, declared that a number of unmistakable blots were to be seen upon her surface. The Countess Gemini was indeed the occasion of a slight discussion between the mistress of the house and the visitor from Rome, in which Madame Merle (who was not such a fool as to irritate people by always agreeing with them) availed herself humorously of that large license of dissent which her hostess permitted as freely as she practised it. Mrs. Touchett had pronounced it a piece of audacity that the Countess Gemini should have presented herself at this time of day at the door of a house in which she was esteemed so little as she must long have known herself to be at the Palazzo Crescentini. Isabel had been made acquainted with the estimate which prevailed under this roof ; it represented Mr. Osmond's sister as a kind of nighty reprobate. She had been married by her mother a heartless featherhead like herself, with an appreciation of foreign titles which the daughter, to do her justice, had probably by this time thrown off to an Italian nobleman who had perhaps given her some excuse for attempting to quench the consciousness of neglect. The Countess, however, had consoled herself too well, and it was notorious in Florence that she had consoled others also. Mrs. Touchett had never consented to receive her, though the Countess had made overtures of old. Florence was not an austere city ; but, as Mrs. Touchett said, she had to draw the line somewhere. Madame Merle defended the unhappy lady with a great deal of zeal and wit. She could not see why Mrs. Touchett should R 2
