Beatrice presented her friend to Mrs.Baxendale, and at once withdrew.
The lady with whom Wilfrid found himself talking was tall and finely made, not very graceful in her bearing, and with a large face, the singular kindness of which speedily overcame the first sense of dissatisfaction at its plainness.

She wore a little cap of lace, and from her matronly costume breathed a pleasant freshness, akin to the activity of her flame.

Having taken the young man's hand at greeting, she held it in both her own, and with large, grey eyes examined his face shrewdly.

Yet neither the action nor the gaze was embarrassing to Wilfrid he felt, on the contrary, something wonderfully soothing in the pressure of the warm, firm hands, and in her look an invitation to the repose of confidence which was new in his experience of women--an experience not extensive, by the bye, though his characteristic generalisations seemed to claim the opposite.

He submitted from the first moment to an influence maternal in its spirit, an influence which his life had lacked, and which can perhaps only be fully appreciated either in mature reflection upon a past made sacred by death, or on a meeting such as this, when the heart is open to the helpfulness of disinterested sympathy.