Her sister, who was, so to speak, only a little rustic, sat and gazed at her in a kind of rapture. Her heart did not, as yet at least, go out towards this intruder into her life; her affections were as yet untouched; and her temper was a little excited, disturbed by the critical tone which her sister assumed, and the calm frankness with which she spoke. But though all these dissatisfied, almost hostile sentiments were in Frances’ mind, her eyes and attention were fascinated. She could not resist the influence which this external perfection of being produced upon her. It was only perhaps now in the full morning light, in the _abandon_ of this confidence and candour, which had none of the usual tenderness of confidential revelations, but rather a certain half-disdainful self-discovery which necessity demanded, that Frances fully perceived her sister’s gifts. Her own impatience, her little impulses of irritation and contradiction, died away in the wondering admiration with which she gazed. Constance showed no sign even of remarking the effect she produced. She said meditatively, dropping the words into the calm air without any apparent conception of novelty or wonder in them, “I wonder how you will like it when you have to go.”
Within the first few days, a great many of these conversations took place, and Frances gradually formed an idea to herself--not, perhaps, very like reality, but yet an idea--of the other life from which her sister had come. The chief figure in it was “mamma,” the mother with whom Constance was so carelessly familiar, and of whom she herself knew nothing at all. Frances did not learn from her sister’s revelations to love her mother. The effect was very different from that which, in such circumstances, might have been looked for. She came to look upon this unknown representative of “the parents’ side,” as Constance said, as upon a sort of natural opponent, one who understood but little and sympathised not at all with the younger, the other faction, the generation which was to succeed and replace her. Of this fact the other girl never concealed her easy conviction. The elders for the moment had the power in their hands, but by-and-by their day would be over. There was nothing unkind or cruel in this certainty; it was simply the course of nature: by-and-by their sway would be upset by the natural progress of events, and in the meantime it was modified by the other certainty, that if the young stood firm, the elders had no alternative but to give in. Altogether, it was evident the parents’ side was not the winning side; but all the same it had the power of annoying the other to a very great extent, and exercised this power with a selfishness which was sometimes brutal. Mamma, it was evident, had not considered Constance at all. She had taken her about into society for her own ends, not for her daughter’s pleasure: and, finally, she had formed a plan by which Constance was to be handed over to another proprietor without any consultation of her own wishes.