I accompanied Sandford home, and found his establishment such as I should have expected from a man of his liberal and enlightened turn of mind--handsome without ostentation--liberal without profusion. His lady was a most amiable and agreeable person--unaffected and cheerful in her manners. I was delighted with my first introduction to her. Coming forward to meet me with all the graceful ease that distinguishes a well-bred woman, and with all the warmth of manner of an old friend, she shook me most cordially by the hand.
"Mr Douglas," said she, "I am delighted to see you; often and often has Sandford talked over your mutual adventures, and regretted the evil destiny that separated him from his earliest and dearest friend. Your character is so familiar to me, that I feel as if, instead of addressing a stranger, I were talking to an old friend. I hope you will soon learn to look upon all here in the same light."
It was impossible not to feel instantly at home, where such genuine and sincere cordiality was displayed; and in a few hours I was as completely domesticated at Grant Hall, as if I had been its inmate for years. The very servants seemed to feel that in pleasing me they were pleasing their master and mistress; for whom, it was evident, they all felt the greatest affection and respect. It is a good sign of the heads of a house, when the servants grow grey at their posts; and most of those at Grant Hall seemed in a fair way of doing so. But I am digressing. While the ceremony of introduction between myself and Mrs Grant was in progress, a young lady was seated at one of the open windows. She raised her eyes on my entrance--and such eyes! However, I will say nothing more about them; for, though so much has already been spoken and written about ladies' eyes, one glance from such a pair as then beamed upon me was worth volumes of description. There was nothing at first particularly striking about the lady's appearance; at least nothing sufficiently so for particular notice or description; but, on further scrutiny, her features were faultlessly regular, and the expression of her countenance was so placid and gentle, that, had it not been for the lambent fire of her dark eyes, I might almost have fancied that some pure, cold, faultless creation of the sculptor's fancy sat before me. Hers was one of those faces which seldom _arrest_ admiration at first sight, but which seem to display new beauties the longer they are gazed upon. Sandford introduced her as his sister Alice.