Their strange, rich, ugly, or beautiful garments, their stolid or fervid, ugly or beautiful, faces, seemed to demand something of her; at least she had just enough imagination to feel somewhat as if they did.

Walderhurst was very kind to her, but she was afraid she might bore him by the exceeding ignorance of her questions about people whom he had known from his childhood as his own kith and kin.

It was not unlikely that one might have become so familiar with a man in armour or a woman in a farthingale that questions connected with them might seem silly.

Persons whose ancestors had always gazed intimately at them from walls might not unnaturally forget that there were other people to whom they might wear only the far-away aspect of numbers in catalogues of the Academy, or exhibitions of that order.
There was a very interesting catalogue of the Palstrey pictures, and Emily found and studied it with deep interest.

She cherished a touching secret desire to know what might be discoverable concerning the women who had been Marchionesses of Walderhurst before.