Her hair had the flaxen ends and sandy roots one so often sees in those women whose locks have been golden as children.  It was a thin, dank kind of hair, too, with no glints anywhere.  Her eyes were blue and large and meaningless and rather prominent, and her lightish eyelashes seemed to give no shade to them.

Morella’s orbs just looked out at you like the bow-windows of a sea-side villa—­staring and commonplace.  Her features were regular, and her complexion, if somewhat all too red, was fresh withal; so that, possessing an income of many thousands, she passed for a beauty of exceptional merit.

She had a good maid who used her fingers dexterously, and did what she could with a mistress devoid of all sense of form or color.

Miss Winmarleigh went to the opera regularly and sat solidly through it.  The music said nothing to her, but it was the right place for her to be, and she could talk to her friends before going on to the numerous balls she attended.

If she loved anything in the world she loved Hector Bracondale, but her feelings gave her no anxieties.  He would certainly marry her presently, the affair would be so suitable to all parties; meanwhile, there was plenty of time, and all was in order.  The perfect method of her account-books, in which the last sixpence she spent in the day was duly entered, translated itself to her life.  Method and order were its watchwords; and if the people who knew her intimately—­such as her chaperon, Mrs. Herrick, and her maid, Gibson—­thought her mean, she was not aware of their opinion, and went her way in solid rejoicing.

Lady Bracondale was really attached to her.  Morella’s decorum, her absence of all daring thought in conversation, pleased her so.  She had none of that feeling when with Miss Winmarleigh she suffered in the company of her daughter Anne, who said things so often she did not quite understand, yet which she dimly felt might have two meanings, and one of them a meaning she most probably would disapprove of.

She loved Anne, of course, but oh, that she could have been more like herself or Morella Winmarleigh!

Both women saw Hector in the omnibus box, and saw him leave it, and were quite ready with their greetings when he joined them.

Miss Winmarleigh had a slight air of proprietorship about her, which every one knew when Hector was there.  And most people thought as she did, that he would certainly marry her in the near future.

He was glad it was not between the acts—­there was no excuse for conversation after their greeting, so he searched the house in peace with his glasses.

And although he was hoping to see Theodora, his heart gave a great bound of surprised joy when, on the pit tier, almost next the box he had just left, he discovered her.  He supposed it was a box often let to strangers that season, as he could not remember whose the name was as he had passed.  He got back into the shadow, that his gaze should not be too remarkable.  She had not caught sight of him yet, or so it seemed.