Isabel would return to this some day; there were sorts of things as to which she liked to be clear.

She heard Pansy strumming at the piano in another place as she herself was ushered into Mr.
Osmond's drawing-room; the little girl was "practising," and Isabel was pleased to think she performed this duty with rigour.

She immediately came in, smoothing down her frock, and did the honours of her father's house with a wide-eyed earnestness of courtesy.

Isabel sat there half an hour, and Pansy rose to the occasion as the small, winged fairy in the pantomime soars by the aid of the dissimulated wire--not chattering, but conversing, and showing the same respectful interest in Isabel's affairs that Isabel was so good as to take in hers.

Isabel wondered at her; she had never had so directly presented to her nose the white flower of cultivated sweetness.