She had a way of advancing her toes first and making the next step with a tilt, so soft that it was scarcely a break from a glide, and yet clearing the floor as to her slipper heels.
Lucina knew her aunt Camilla was coming down the stairs by the rustling of her silk flounces along the rails of the banisters, like harp-strings; then there was a cumulative whisper and an entrance.
Lucina rose, holding her doll like a dignified little mother, and dropped a courtesy.
"Good-afternoon," said Aunt Camilla.
"Good-afternoon," returned Lucina.
"How do you do ?" asked Aunt Camilla.
"Pretty well, I thank you," replied Lucina.
"How is your mother ?" "Pretty well, I thank you." "Is your father well ?" "Yes, ma'am; I thank you." During this dialogue Aunt Camilla was moving gently forward upon her niece.

When she reached her she stooped, or rather drooped--for stooping implies a bend of bone and muscle, and her graceful body seemed to be held together by integuments like long willow leaves--and kissed her with a light touch of cool, delicate lips.
Aunt Camilla's slender arms in their pointed lilac sleeves and lace undersleeves waved forward as with a vague caressing intent.

Soft locks of hair and frilling laces in her cap and bosom hung forward like leaves on a swaying bough, and tickled Lucina's face, half smothered in the old lavender fragrance.
Lucina colored innocently and sweetly when her aunt kissed her, and afterwards looked up at her with sincerest love and admiration and delight.
Camilla Merritt was far from young, being much older than her brother, Lucina's father; but she was old as a poem or an angel might be, with the lovely meaning of her still uppermost and most evident.
Camilla in her youth had been of a rare and delicate beauty, which had given her fame throughout the country-side, and she held the best of it still, as one holds jewels in a worn casket, and as a poem written in obsolete language contains still its first grace of thought.

Camilla's soft and slender body had none of those stiff, distorted lines which come from resistance to the forced attitudes of life.

Her body and her soul had been amenable to all discipline.