The term had always suggested to her something grotesque and even sinister.

But her aunt made it a matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as interesting.

No one certainly had on any occasion so held her as this little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who retrieved an insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked with striking familiarity of the courts of Europe.

There was nothing flighty about Mrs.Touchett, but she recognised no social superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth in a way that spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression on a candid and susceptible mind.

Isabel at first had answered a good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently that Mrs.Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence.