On the day she left London, Herminia thought to herself she had
never seen her child look so absolutely lovely. The unwonted union
of blue eyes with that olive-gray skin gave a tinge of wayward
shyness to her girlish beauty. The golden locks had ripened to
nut-brown, but still caught stray gleams of nestling sunlight.
'Twas with a foreboding regret that Herminia kissed Dolly on both
peach-bloom cheeks at parting. She almost fancied her child must
be slipping from her motherly grasp when she went off so blithely
to visit these unknown friends, away down in Dorsetshire. Yet
Dolly had so few amusements of the sort young girls require that
Herminia was overjoyed this opportunity should have come to her.
She reproached herself not a little in her sensitive heart for even
feeling sad at Dolly's joyous departure. Yet to Dolly it was a
delight to escape from the atmosphere of Herminia's lodgings.
Those calm heights chilled her.
The Compsons' house was quite as "grand" in the reality as Dolly
had imagined it. There was a man-servant in a white tie to wait at
table, and the family dressed every evening for dinner.
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