t younger than herself.

Both Milray and his sister had a wish which was much more than a
curiosity to know what had become of Clementina; they had heard that her
husband was dead, and that she had come back to Middlemount; and Miss
Milray was going to the office, the afternoon following their arrival,
to ask the landlord about her, when she was arrested at the door of the
ball-room by a sight that she thought very pretty. At the bottom of the
room, clearly defined against the long windows behind her, stood the
figure of a lady in the middle of the floor. In rows on either side sat
little girls and little boys who left their places one after another,
and turned at the door to make their manners to her. In response to each
obeisance the lady dropped a curtsey, now to this side, now to that,
taking her skirt between her finger tips on either hand and spreading
it delicately, with a certain elegance of movement, and a grace that
was full of poetry, and to Miss Milray, somehow, full of pathos. There
remained to the end a small mite of a girl, who was the last to leave
her place and bow to the lady. She did not quit the room then, like the
others, but advanced toward the lady who came to meet her, and lifted
her and clasped her to her breast with a kind of passion. She walked
down toward the door where Miss Milray stood, gently drifting over the
polished floor, as if still moved by the music that had ceased, and as
she drew near, Miss Milray gave a cry of joy, and ran upon her. "Why,
Clementina!" she screamed, and caught her and the child both in her
arms.

She began to weep, but Clementina smiled instead of weeping, as she
always used to do. She returned Miss Milray's affectionate greeting with
a tenderness as great as her own, but with a sort of authority, such as
sometimes comes to those who have suffered. She quieted the older woman
with her own serenity, and met the torrent of her questions with as many
answers as their rush permitted, when they were both presently in Miss
Milray's room talking in their old way. From time to time Miss Milray
broke from the talk to kiss the little girl, whom she declared to be
Clementina all over again, and then returned to her better behavior with
an effect of shame for her want of self-control, as if Clementina's mood
had abashed her. Sometimes this was almost severe in its quiet; that
was her mother coming to her share in her; but again she was like her
father, full of the sunny gaye